Corruption chaff in the wind

Rather unsurprisingly, last week’s release of the 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) has gained very little traction in the public domain.

The report looks substantially at how corrupt public sector practices “undermine efforts to address the climate crisis, disrupt environmental sustainability, and hinder equitable progress toward a more sustainable future.”

In CPI 2024, Trinidad and Tobago scored 41 and was ranked 82nd of the 180 countries. The global average was 43 and our score in 2023 was 42. The higher the score, the “cleaner” the country. 

As far as I have been able to see, both on legacy and social media, there has been no serious engagement of some of the key assertions of this report which attempts to record perceptions by experts and businesspeople about the prevalence of corrupt practices globally, using 13 independent data sets from agencies such as the World Bank.

I think there are several reasons for the apparent indifference. And it’s not that I think there is a lack of general concern. As we witnessed last week, the subject was sensationally and absurdly invoked as part of a claim that the ethnic character of perceived chronic offenders is linked to strategies to gain political advantage.

And this excited so many of us that social media platforms remained lit and alive on the matter even through the Carnival fetes and constituency screening processes.

However, such a vulgar assessment of the corruption reality disregards the complex nature of the challenge and does not encourage engagement of the complex nature of what we confront.

There is nothing in the claim, for instance, that expresses a serious concern that corruption in all its manifestations - from the petty to the administrative to the grand corruption to which newspaper headlines are attracted – brings with it numerous threats to urgent developmental needs.

Little has been inserted in the public space to draw attention to the numerous economic, social, political, and environmental impacts.

Now, the latter (largely ignored) concern about the natural environment brings us back to the 2024 CPI and its concern about the climate crisis.

It is true, among other things, that the immediate lack of attention owes somewhat to the current heavy preoccupation with the ins and outs of the Carnival and election seasons – if you’re able to tell the difference.  

The public agenda is also justifiably, and simultaneously, preoccupied with the fact that the State of Emergency is not achieving the goals as set out in the core justification namely: to address anticipated heightened criminal activity involving high-power weapons and stimulated by “retaliatory acts between gangs.”

Who really wants to hear about the dissecting of systemic corruption and its impact on development at this time?

Additionally, and I think most importantly, the attempt by the Transparency folks to locate an intersection between corruption and the climate crisis comes up against several compelling phenomena.

These include the growing role of political anti-science. This is just a fancy way of saying that many political actors, both here and abroad, aren’t entirely convinced that human conduct plays as significant a role in changing climate conditions as is being proposed by most of the world’s leading scientists.

The climate crisis has thus been thrown by many in a public bin wherein also reside the remnants of the Covid-19 pandemic and actions to address it, lunar landings, universal human rights, and assertions such as the spherical nature of planet Earth.

There is a virtual global manifesto being authored to mobilise public action against scientific thought and action. So, any attempt to nuance the corruption case against the backdrop of challenged climate-related actions, is doomed to elude serious attention in some important quarters.

That said, in what I consider to be a major concession by the CPI authors, there is the assertion that even as some countries have impressive scores on the Index, there are practices related to the “washing” of corrupt money permitted with impunity in such places.

There is the accompanying question of the disproportionate, punitive emphasis on the practices of small economies such as ours when larger, wealthier countries with high CPIs are efficient facilitators of international corruption but are readily permitted to have their way. Marla Dukharan’s campaign for a global review of tax havens eloquently makes the point.

What, by way of political commentary, last week and over the weekend, explored these dimensions of the corruption question? There has been much chaff in the wind and little to indicate seriousness on these matters. We won’t reach too far with that.

 

A Question of Shelter

The recent demolition of squatter homes in Arima was bound to invoke mixed but strong feelings among those of us who have been following this recurring subject over the years.

The offer by the Sou Sou Lands Co-operative Society to assist in post facto relocation was also likely to generate even more intense emotions. For here was a once highly touted national solution in search of a durable, facilitative policy and regulatory environment.

From the early introduction of the “sou-sou” approach to the land and housing challenges of T&T in the 1980s, through its eventual burial under substantial political rubble, there has always been a concern by some (not many) that the time would come when amorphous aspirations to recognise a “right to adequate housing and shelter” would be exposed as the stuff of unrealistic, fanciful expectation.

Indeed, its place among the major components of economic, social, and cultural rights renders such a commitment a key part of developmental agendas wherever they are promoted and pursued. Yet, official policy is rarely matched by real action, and political narratives are routinely noted for their delusion or silence on this.

This goes far beyond concerns about abiding by the rules. It strikes at the heart of whether a duty of care is or is not embedded as a vital part of how we do business in this town.

It is clear to me that current efforts to deliver on this commitment, through a combination of state-constructed housing and land leases, together with open market forces, do not take several important factors into consideration.

Public initiatives are either woefully inadequate, bureaucratically inaccessible, conducive to corruption, and conducted in an unaccommodating climate. In the breach, families who cannot make the financial grade on the open market, and opt for the other available route, run the risk of evacuation with big guns trained on them.

Now, none of this is meant to endorse law-breaking with impunity. There are people who believe that, with some political posturing as a buffer, they can get away with wrongdoing. We are also all aware of the fact that in numerous instances, market speculation on and sale of state lands by cynical criminals boldly prevail.

This is among the wilful violations for which the force of the state can be acceptably applied … upon the perpetrators - with due consideration in the case of unsuspecting victims who are ignorant of the cautions of caveat emptor (let the buyer beware).

That said, even applicable laws acknowledge a favourable prerogative of the state. For instance, certificates of comfort are conditionally permitted in selected instances. But, in all this, people need to have knowledge of and confidence in the system.

The fact that it so often reaches the point of forcible expulsion and the destruction of homes also suggests to me that a measure of vigilance by authorities and the application of pre-emptive measures are disturbingly absent factors.

Amazingly, information released by the Housing Development Corporation (HDC) on the Arima site suggests there was access to construction data/images as far back as 2014 and 2018. Certainly, such monitoring mechanisms (satellite imagery mainly) could have detected work underway on some structures in recent months. Where was the action to ensure things did not reach the stage they eventually did?

I refuse to believe that people are generally comfortable, as is often suggested by some, with occupying domestic spaces over which there is such a high level of insecurity that they can be forcibly expelled. On this matter, people would much prefer, I am certain, to do things the proper way.

The sou-sou lands alternative offered an approach that acknowledged limited financial resources, pervasive unfamiliarity with cumbersome processes to get things done, and the acceptability of incremental development of the domestic space. It also revived interest in longstanding “gayap” practices to optimise the employment of community resources.

It was also meant, importantly, to be a pre-emptive intervention to extinguish the lure of lawlessness. I remember well the PR surrounding the projects. Did such an approach not work? Where are its main proponents today? Weren’t they close to centres of political power and influence?

Abandonment of such measures is among the reasons why the required trust in both the people and processes to meet our shelter needs is in massive deficit. Government boots and heavy artillery appear to be a preferred method. In the final analysis that’s guaranteed not to get the job done.

Pan vibes and hope

A good friend and valued colleague of mine asked me last Sunday why there isn’t more of a “vibe” in the Grand Stand of the Queen’s Park Savannah between Panorama performances.

I took this to mean that between the magnificent performances we were witnessing at Junior Panorama, there should have perhaps been loud party music, dancing, shouting across the aisles, and half-drunk groups conjuring up iron sections to incite riotous jams.

Then, on Monday, a fellow Caribbean journalist asked about the state of my (these days afflicted) legs after all the “wining down” at the show.

I am no prude, and I have grown to appreciate the revelry that occurs over in the North Stand and elsewhere in the vicinity (I shall not call its name) between performances. I seriously don’t mind - though I think a large, soundless screen on Chacachacare is more appropriate for those who go to party rather than to listen carefully to pan.

In all my 45 plus years of following the competitions and other steelpan shows, I have been in such company just once. Puke avoidance and paramedical assistance to the intoxicated are not my idea of fun.

And, yes, I get up to stretch my legs between performances and repeated playing of the various tunes of choice does help me flex even more.

Renegades Youth show their skills on stage (WG photo)

But I firmly believe I belong to a growing (not diminishing) category of people who go to pan shows for the pan and nothing but the pan – the greatest thing we do in all of T&T. My old Panorama liming partner, the late George John, would entertain not even the most hushed tones during performances.

A passing nutsman would earn the stare of agonising death, and the couple gossiping behind us as bands played would hear an untraceable “Shhhhh!!!” Whether on duty or not, we’d walk with notebooks scribbling points such as “too much banging of the pans”, “who but the audience is seeing the conductor?”, “that frontline tenor is shadowing”, and all the stuff I still do.

So, back to Franka. The music was loud when I responded – “The London Philharmonic. Do nutsmen pass by shouting ‘salt and fresh’ during performances?” The reference was appropriate for my once UK-based friend. She had surely been to the Barbican Centre and the Royal Festival Hall – and I am not at all saying what happens on stage there is superior to what we have on offer, but that there is clear respect for what is on show.

What I mean is that the evolving nature of the steelpan and what it is offering requires a greater level of regard even as it allows us to flex as Trinis between performances. I confessed to Desiree Myers of Invaders last Sunday that her band’s performance squeezed the season’s first pan tears from me.

Much of this is owing to my belief that the steelpan is the single most important asset of ours. I have also developed an appreciation for the value of competitions as one of the several activities to boost the durable, wider reach of the music. I did not always think so and it remains subject to the kind of change I recognise, as expressed below.

The fact is pan is greater than the competitions and even the national body which oversees its state and corporate assisted growth and development. It is a model for social development and a prospective, yet under-recognised, asset for economic diversification and prosperity.

And, if you think all of this today is to avoid confronting current dystopian descent home and abroad, think about what the instrument is bringing to us at this time. For close to 12 hours last Sunday, many (not all) of us were witnessing the great hope our young people are bringing to the table.

What is happening in pan is respectful of diversity, egalitarian in nature, and mindful of creative imagination as a resource of immeasurable value. We need to remain awake to this.

Additionally, I think there should be more about the (perhaps unprecedented) three ties in the 2025 Under 21 Final. Four bands tied for second, three for eighth, and two for eleventh.

Such tight placings can be interpreted to be implicitly flagging the true significance of the encounters as more than a mere competition. Ditto the other categories – wait till the Medium and Large bands come along to defy a notion of “judging.”

Once again, and through our children, hope has been laid on our tables. We ignore such an offering at our collective peril.

 

Things That Matter

With so much going on, including the global reach of tyranny, it becomes difficult to pin down individual, urgent needs for public attention employing the limited space of a newspaper column. But, as has increasingly become the case, life in T&T tugs you back on direct course … sometimes quite brutally.

For instance, an early morning message from a relative last Monday reminded me of the degree to which repeated political campaign claims can be distanced from lived realities.

Phone in hand at 3 in the morning, lying on her side on the dry half of a narrow urine-soaked hospital gurney, she wrote painfully in broken sentences: “Nightmare urine bag leaking on floor and bed. stomach bag never changed, or anyone ask if I hungry.”

Yes, dear minister, “media people” will see the broken urine bag and wet bed long before a freshly painted, reconstructed wall or building. So, don’t hold your breath for apologies or lengthy explanations. Vigilance casts wide, not narrow eyes. We consider ourselves to have failed if an entire story has not been told —fresh walls and unattended broken urine bags included.

The day before that text, I was told by a chronically and seriously ill friend that she had been turned away from the A&E of the same public hospital because prior blood pressure readings, taken by another state health institution of between 208/134 and 214/147, weren’t high enough for admission and treatment.

These episodes are highlighted at the top of today’s dispatch only because they constitute matters of life and death. But the malaise extends across the vast spectrum of services over which there is both administrative and political oversight.

It is not that some things have not improved. For instance, the inhumanity of some official procedures has been successfully addressed with the help of diligent public servants. Yet, there is so much that can be improved through the intervention of political vision aided by administrative competence and commitment in the vast majority of other areas.

I am not going to apologise for raising the “digital transformation” story for the umpteenth time here. Fellow media correspondent, Mark Lyndersay, who is far more competent and perhaps even more passionate on the subject than I, has said almost everything about the enormous gap between stated intention and current reality.

No, minister, at the current rate and under prevailing circumstances, there is no possibility of leapfrogging into what, for many countries, is already the present but which, for us, remains the seemingly distant future. And, yes, we know and understand the limitations; not the least being an unenthusiastic public service engine room. But what now passes as digital gains are completely unimpressive micro-steps.

I have, in this respect, developed the bad, somewhat self-destructive habit of taking note of the working environments of the bureaucratic big-wigs—some of whom reminisce boastfully on the smell of paper and ink. The politicians awkwardly and incompetently employing social media and AI as supposed image-enhancing aids. The public service processes across three and four steps that can easily and logically be one.

Now, about that small pothole along the Southern Main Road in Curepe opposite the betting place. That one that has been causing drivers to veer marginally into oncoming traffic. I wrote about it exactly one year ago. It’s not a large or significant pothole. Nothing for an MP or local government councillor to rage over. A small one left behind years ago following what might have been the laying of water pipes.

Somebody had clearly screwed up and another declared: “leave dat so.” Because “leave dat jess so” is how we do business around here.

It has apparently not been large enough for political points but has been used by people like me as an indication of how things work in this place. One of these late nights or early mornings, we will read or hear about the car proceeding north along the Southern Main Road in Curepe whose driver “lost control” and ran into an oncoming vehicle with tragic results.

So, today is not about global threats to enlightened progress spanning decades. It’s not about the climate crisis upon us. It’s not about election shenanigans and bacchanal. Neither does it sound the usual alarms about democratic relapses. It is about high blood pressure, urine on a hospital gurney, idle digital tools, and a small hole on the main road.

It’s about some of the many things that really matter at the end of the day.

The High Cost of Koochoor

Someone noted recently that this space has apparently chosen to “studiously” avoid the pre-elections goings-on that have so strongly captured public attention over recent weeks.

Believe me, this was deliberated but never intended to diminish the significance of what is before us at this time. It is just that I think we need to acknowledge the high cost of bacchanal.

Anyway, there has been a notice of resignation by the Prime Minister, the awkwardly transacted (however statutorily correct) assigning of a successor, muted convulsions, and a cognitive dissonance not routinely witnessed outside the hushed corridors and chambers of the ruling party.

The latter observation is not at all unprecedented. There were notable episodes over the years including late PM Dr Eric Williams’ 1973 threat to resign; the presidential appointment of PM George Chambers in 1981 when Dr Williams passed; more than one episode involving Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley and late PM Patrick Manning, and Dr Rowley’s dramatic election as political leader of the PNM in 2010. There are more instances that could have been mentioned here.

Suffice it to say there have been equally, if not more, tantalising developments within the Opposition UNC from the very start in 1989 and characterised since then by defections and re-absorptions, alignments and re-alignments; brittle institutional arrangements, splintering (cue the launch of Hulsie Bhaggan’s MUP in 1995); Ramesh Lawrence-Maharaj’s Team Unity of 2001; the defections of Gillian Lucky and Fuad Khan in 2005; the launch of the COP in 2006; the emergence of political leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar following internal elections in 2010, and numerous other episodes.

Satisfied? Much of this has been reflected upon right here over the years. Additionally, there are very few current developments disassociated from the political habits of these two organisations spanning many years – the PNM being the more durable, stable, and set in its ways (the transformative one-person-one-vote reform notwithstanding).

However, what I believe is truly important at this time is the unfolding of political behaviour by an electorate that is ageing, besieged by a multiplicity of challenges that have accompanied a modern era dominated by new technologies and social media, people undergoing the pangs of changing belief systems, and many captivated by a perception that the distribution of real power and influence has shifted in new and different directions.

There are regularly quoted academics better known for expression of personal preference and guesstimates who ought to be otherwise busying themselves dissecting such matters and determining empirical bases for some of their steadfast assertions. My media colleagues need to undertake far more pointed interrogations of the numerous claims.

Fact-checkers often need to themselves be fact-checked. My perennial gripe has been concerned with the degree to which elections related shenanigans have displaced actual development concerns.

As a consequence, things such as the process to select candidates appears to supersede, by a wide margin, questions regarding a clear commitment to and agenda for securing the country’s future.

This is much more than shibboleths focused on “crime” and “the economy” – as indispensable as they as flags for immediate concern. Policing (cue a State of Emergency to strengthen this approach) is consequently offered as a solution to the problem of “crime”, and views on “the economy” conveniently aggregate overly loose and underdeveloped notions of “diversification”.

Yes, there is a need to reduce incompetence and corruption in the police service, and to consider future directions for the economy but what, specifically and incisively explained, is on offer in 2025?

Can Elections 2025 offer pathways for decision-making by the electorate that can take us away from what appears to be a terminally sorry pass? What specifically is on offer to suggest this may or may not be the case?

Yeah. Yeah. Whosoever wins will deal with these things when they return/get there. In the meantime, there remain concerns about modernisation of both the private and public sectors (read digitalisation of processes etc.); deeper integration of human rights as pillars of development (note migrant rights, LGBT+ rights, reproductive rights; the rights of the child); nutrition security; climate crisis measures; and enlightened human resource development exploitative of the vast potential of our youth.

Some of this is already there in available literature. This includes the far too easily trashed (and widely unread) Vision 2020 document, published in 2005, and numerous other clinical examinations by others. But mention this in the throes of political tumult and koochoor nuh and prepare yourself for the bin with a party brand or some other label implanted on your backside.

The Joshua Factor

The announcement of a State of Emergency on Monday appeared to undermine my plan to spend time here stretching the Joshua Regrello metaphor to a place from where we could better understand the true state of T&T civilisation.

But maybe this does not have to be so, after all.

I had noted the fact that some people could simply not find in their souls the time and space to even acknowledge such an accomplishment. I believe there was difficulty in doing so partly because of emotions associated with low appreciation for the steelpan and what it means for all of us, together with a not disassociated assertion of ethnic under-achievement.

Today is not the day, and Happy New Year by the way, to restate all I have previously said on the latter, contentious point. But examine your heart while preparing to rebut and explain to a friend or family member exactly what you mean in plain language.

Let’s also be clear, 31 continuous hours on the pan was not “the greatest thing to happen to our country.” Would it be August 31, 1962? Or the football match on November 19, 1989, right? Or maybe not. Maybe elections on December 15, 1986? No?

Yes, we’ve heard the declaration before, but to be sure, that moment is yet to arrive.

However, what young Regrello did was to redirect achievement in, for some, the disquieting socio-cultural spaces occupied by the young, black men of T&T, employing the assets of a musical instrument born out of open defiance and victorious cultural revolution now claimed by all.

Even if you do not enjoy music as played on the pan (a shortcoming to which anyone is fully entitled … I don’t like the accordion), the display of human endurance and employment of an insanely vast musical repertoire alone is sufficient for accolades beyond those on offer from Guinness or Skiffle or PanTrinbago or T&T. 

Yet, there are so many who skipped effortlessly to arguments over SOE 25. Go back to the top to have a clue why this is so. There are disquieting connections on their part.

For those of us who champion human rights, even the mention of suspending civil liberties under legal authority is troubling. We’ve long opposed measures that curb free speech, reproductive rights, gender equality, and children's rights, together with the vast spectrum of civil, economic, social, and cultural rights.

Yet, disturbingly, some who were silent about the 2011 State of Emergency are now vocal about the current version, while others who disapproved of SOE11 are now doggedly supportive of SOE25. All without reference to the potential impacts of both on wider civil liberties.

Despite differences in context, the arguments for and against these States of Emergency are strikingly similar. In the end, what matters to many is the desire for an end to the violence, extortion, and corruption that plague us all.

In other parts of the world, extreme measures have been tested with mixed results. For example, in countries like Honduras, El Salvador, and Jamaica, the verdicts are not entirely impressive. El Salvador has seen some success at the daily street level, which absolutely boosts citizen and visitor confidence, but organised criminal activity remains largely undisturbed.

Honduras, on the other hand, faced an increase in extortion even in the early phases, and Jamaica’s years of SOEs have yielded results ranging from the limited to the ineffective. However, there remains widespread recognition of the daily violence that still characterises life there.

From these examples, it’s clear that no easy answers exist. This is a long, hard path to peace. Police performance here, for instance, does not inspire much confidence. State interventions need major upgrades, and there’s a pressing need for better cross-sectoral collaboration across the board.

People also do not believe they have anything to do with either the underlying causes or the actions required to frame the outcomes. After all, we elect governments to do that, don’t we?

Everywhere this challenge exists, they are all finding, as we must, that this is not an easy road paved with quick fixes. A Joshua Regrello level of endurance, skill, versatility, harnessing of collective assets, and self-belief are among the indispensable qualities. The young man and his supporting acts showed us how some of these qualities are not beyond our reach.

A Tall Christmas Tale

Joe and Marie lived on Bethel Road in Sandy Grandy with their son, Christopher. The couple had arrived in Trinidad 20 years earlier aboard the Admiral II from St Vincent. Six years later, Christopher was born in the wooden shack they called home, on a mattress in the space that doubled as dining and living rooms.

By the time he was 14, Christopher, skinny and tall, had already surpassed his short, chubby father in height.

Life was difficult for the family. Joe often found casual work, clearing grass verges and painting rocks white at the base of struggling palms. But such assignments were sporadic.

Adding to their struggles was the fact that Joe and Marie had entered Trinidad without their “papers” having hidden alongside crates of yams and sweet potatoes. They faced years of trouble securing proper immigration papers.

Fortunately, help often came from their neighbours, Judd and Trudy. Judd ran a successful used-car sales business, and Trudy, was a homemaker. They were childless.

On weekends, Judd would help Joe with yard work and, because he was tall, took on tasks like pruning the Chinese bamboo hedge that separated their properties. The chore became exclusively his after Joe fell off a ladder while cutting the bamboo, fell on the burning pile he had lit, broke his wrist and sustained second degree burns to his arms.

That time of year was particularly eventful on Bethel Road. When Christopher was about 10, he stepped on a rusty nail while laying linoleum on the uneven floorboards at home. The ensuing injury left him unable to wear shoes for years. At home, he wore rubber slippers, and for school or outings, his parents bought him leather sandals.

Judd was particularly present at Christmas time, helping to paint the house, boiling hams on outdoor fires in a Crix tin, and setting up decorations in areas Joe could not reach.

Though Judd avoided pork due to his belief that it was “nasty meat,” he made exceptions for Christmas ham and beef/pork pastelles, claiming they were “not exactly the same thing.”

Marie made new curtains every year. She spent hours at the old Singer sewing machine Joe had found discarded and repaired.

Arguments over curtains were frequent. The house was festooned with curtains - on windows, doorways, and one covering an untidy living/dining room wall. One curtain also hovered midway along the length of the bed Joe and Marie shared, serving as a barrier at times of unresolved disputes.

During one shopping trip for curtain cloth, Joe slipped away to watch an entire football match at a nearby bar. He drank too much, fell off a stool, was robbed by newfound “friends,” and ended up in the hospital with a concussion.

Marie visited him on the ward, shopping bags in hand, while Trudy, suffering from a back strain caused by heavy Yuletide groceries, occupied a bed in the women’s ward across the corridor.

After Christmas, the old curtains became rags for Christopher’s car wash job, where he earned weekend cash. Joe later bought him an Ego ST1511T Power+ 15″ Powerload weed whacker with a telescoping shaft and adjustable handle to expand his work.

Joe later got Christopher a PowRyte Electric Pressure Washer with a foam cannon, multiple pressure tips, and pushing a healthy 5000 PSI. The machine was so powerful it could strip paint off a car and the sound of the motor was capable of stimulating emotions up to one kilometre away.

Christopher’s early-morning work attracted complaints of “noise pollution” from Bethel Road residents, leading to frequent visits from the police and the EMA.

Seeking business elsewhere, he managed to do well every December, eventually employing up to a dozen casual workers. However, disputes over late and unpaid wages and responsibility for noise violation fines led to the eventual dismantling of the team – each member later acquiring their own washers and whackers.

Tensions on Bethel Road also increased over time. A major fallout occurred after Judd, while cleaning paint brushes with pitch oil after Christmas painting, threw the bucket’s contents over the hedge, drenching Christopher. Joe defended his neighbour, asking Christopher “what you doing there in the first place?”

Matters worsened that very Boxing Day when one of Judd’s “Roman Candle” fireworks landed on Christopher’s whacker and destroyed it.

Furious, Christopher, already estranged from his parents over financial disagreements and the pitch-oil incident, grabbed the burnt-out whacker and his pressure washer and stormed out of the neighborhood. “I coming back just now,” he told his mother.

Years have passed, but Christopher has not returned. Joe, Marie, Judd, and Trudy remain united in their hope for his return. Such expectation is disappearing.