Tobago is not the kind of place most people
regularly associate with heartbreak. Yet recent encounters with tragedy and
grief have provided reason to reconsider how we proceed nationally on matters
of personal responsibility, public policy, and collective action.
As of the time of submission of this
column, the search for missing baby Angelo remained in progress - a month after
little Angelica was killed while wading in the ocean with her parents at Pigeon
Point.
The case of Angelo’s disappearance will
soon receive judicial attention, and numerous questions will need answering.
More soon.
Angelica, we would recall, died when a
jetski slammed into her as she waded in the ocean at Pigeon Point in Tobago
last month.
Today’s primary focus is on her, which
raises issues that demand more than our customary awkward attention. We have
been shabbily negotiating a notion of “the right to earn an honest dollar”
against legal requirements, and a duty of care in the absence of explicit or
ignored regulation.
If we wished we could compile a long list
including things such as street vending, traffic light windshield wipers,
itinerant food stalls, and an entire informal economy – productive but known
for non-compliance with labour and other laws.
You may have however gathered from previous
dispatches that I believe the highest form of responsible human conduct can
come from actions unaccompanied by regulation. As a society, we need to
understand how far we should go.
We have sufficient evidence that more laws
and harsher punishment do not necessarily produce better, more principled
behaviour.
Then we have instances where impunity
appears to be the norm. There is a law or a rule, but the chance of getting
away with breaching it is so high that people are not inclined to comply.
We live in a country, for example, where
there is a higher probability of getting away with a violent crime than of
being caught - an average detection rate of under 30%. And if caught, the
chance of competent prosecution and prompt sanction is even lower.
Now imagine the fun to be had in command of
a jet ski when the abuse of such an activity is viewed as low-level wrongdoing.
Put this together - the “honest dollar”, high impunity, “having fun”, and scant
official attention - and you land at the spot where Angelica was killed.
GML Business Correspondent Andrea
Perez-Sobers kept the issue alive when she interviewed Jamaica’s Minister of
Tourism Edmund Bartlett on the subject at last week’s Caribbean Travel
Marketplace in Antigua. Full marks for journalistic persistence on this point.
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| Tobago - not regularly associated with heartbreak |
I hope all concerned will pay close
attention to what this regional tourism leader has in place for itself to stem
the possibility of death, injury, and harm resulting from the misbehaviour of
people who own or control what regulations there categorise as “personal
watercraft (PWCs).”
For starters, in Jamaica, all PWCs must be
registered and licensed. They are also not allowed to be operated from public
beaches.
Bear in mind, though, that the concept of a
“public beach” is currently the subject of strenuous debate in Jamaica given
appalling restrictions on beach access by non-state actors, particularly in the
tourism industry.
PWCs are also generally required to operate
only in daylight, and under licenses that distinguish private, commercial, and
security usage.
In The Bahamas - another serious tourism
destination … which T&T is not … regulations are even more extensive:
import controls, registration, insurance, regular police vetting, and zoning.
None of these measures equals a ban on
PWCs.
In T&T we are moving belatedly toward
enforcement of a maritime/small craft policy. Though the focus is
understandably on Tobago for now, there are ocean folk in Trinidad who can
recite a long list of other transgressions by recreational and other boaters.
We appear to be at a point where a duty of
care cannot be reliably and voluntarily expected at all times. Personal
responsibility is not always a popular resort. So, Angelica’s case is not only
for the Tobago House of Assembly to mull. We are all called to account on this
one. Two little angels are among those who brought us here.
