There
is no escaping the fact that Trinidad & Tobago is suffering from
a severe crisis of leadership in every sphere of public
administration and this lack of direction and vision is having a
detrimental effect on the stewardship of the State and is manifesting
itself in some strange developments here and abroad.
The financial sector is reeling from the abuse meted out by significant players bent on the most corrupt assault on the people in the recent past, and none of the trusted institutions charged with safeguarding the State or the citizens were seen to be about the people's business. Listening to the Commission of Enquiry into the CLICO fiasco one cannot help but be overwhelmed by the sheer scope of the conspiracy and the manic statuary failure that allowed it to prevail, and now, in its wake, we have tens of thousands of dispossessed people hoping for a resolution while the Attorneys for all sides settle down to the game of who did what to whom.
Government itself is seen as a path to personal enrichment through corruption and the association of white collared criminals among our hallowed halls is turning our Parliament into a well dressed game of police and thief. The Parliamentary Code of Ethics has been challenged and defeated (if such a thing is possible to contemplate) to push a questionable appointment through, and the very architects of the thing are standing by mute while our Legislature is made into an international joke.
Business leaders, long driven by profit and the bottom line only lend their voice and reason where their interests lie, and profiteering, price gouging and legal slavery are being allowed to run amok unquestioned by anything resembling authority.
The Ministry of Health, its hospitals and the medical institutions in its charge are failing at delivering the quality of service that could and should be expected based on the quantum of the funding this sector enjoys, and it is not a far stretch to assume that were the hospitals all to be privatized competitively and the funding given to the Health Sector paid into a contributory medical insurance plan for all the people that we would not all be much better served.
The Education sector appears to be devolving and is in fact producing functioning illiterates at an alarming rate. More of a nation wide baby sitting service than a results based school system, our children are being denied the opportunity to excel simply because our teachers and their managers are not inclined to. Again, were the funds paid to the schools used to support privatized and competing facilities where quotas and budgets could be set based on results over time, we could quickly move from mediocrity to excellence and give our youth a substantial edge in a competitive world. I have suggested in the past that the Ministries of Health and Education be made to work together to make teaching hospitals of many of our medical institutions, setting the groundwork for an immediate increase in the production of medical professionals, doctors, nurses, technicians and teachers fueling our development from within.
I could go on and on in sector by public sector but I think that my point is made, that many of these masquerading as leaders are in fact guilty of leading their followers astray. Our greatest failure is that we are hurting our younger generations by this demonstrated lack of integrity and morality in public life, forcing a hopelessness and an abandonment upon them that should itself be considered a crime. Now where the future of our nation should be seen to be growing we have instead shallow lives and wanton violence mimicking the base and the lowest in us.
Maya Angelou said it best when she said - 'There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic, because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.'
The financial sector is reeling from the abuse meted out by significant players bent on the most corrupt assault on the people in the recent past, and none of the trusted institutions charged with safeguarding the State or the citizens were seen to be about the people's business. Listening to the Commission of Enquiry into the CLICO fiasco one cannot help but be overwhelmed by the sheer scope of the conspiracy and the manic statuary failure that allowed it to prevail, and now, in its wake, we have tens of thousands of dispossessed people hoping for a resolution while the Attorneys for all sides settle down to the game of who did what to whom.
Government itself is seen as a path to personal enrichment through corruption and the association of white collared criminals among our hallowed halls is turning our Parliament into a well dressed game of police and thief. The Parliamentary Code of Ethics has been challenged and defeated (if such a thing is possible to contemplate) to push a questionable appointment through, and the very architects of the thing are standing by mute while our Legislature is made into an international joke.
Business leaders, long driven by profit and the bottom line only lend their voice and reason where their interests lie, and profiteering, price gouging and legal slavery are being allowed to run amok unquestioned by anything resembling authority.
The Ministry of Health, its hospitals and the medical institutions in its charge are failing at delivering the quality of service that could and should be expected based on the quantum of the funding this sector enjoys, and it is not a far stretch to assume that were the hospitals all to be privatized competitively and the funding given to the Health Sector paid into a contributory medical insurance plan for all the people that we would not all be much better served.
The Education sector appears to be devolving and is in fact producing functioning illiterates at an alarming rate. More of a nation wide baby sitting service than a results based school system, our children are being denied the opportunity to excel simply because our teachers and their managers are not inclined to. Again, were the funds paid to the schools used to support privatized and competing facilities where quotas and budgets could be set based on results over time, we could quickly move from mediocrity to excellence and give our youth a substantial edge in a competitive world. I have suggested in the past that the Ministries of Health and Education be made to work together to make teaching hospitals of many of our medical institutions, setting the groundwork for an immediate increase in the production of medical professionals, doctors, nurses, technicians and teachers fueling our development from within.
I could go on and on in sector by public sector but I think that my point is made, that many of these masquerading as leaders are in fact guilty of leading their followers astray. Our greatest failure is that we are hurting our younger generations by this demonstrated lack of integrity and morality in public life, forcing a hopelessness and an abandonment upon them that should itself be considered a crime. Now where the future of our nation should be seen to be growing we have instead shallow lives and wanton violence mimicking the base and the lowest in us.
Maya Angelou said it best when she said - 'There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic, because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.'
The
truth of the matter is that we have to become much more circumspect
in the choices we make as we haven't had leaders of substance or
vision for quite some time. This more than anything else is where the
rubber meets the road; That we are long overdue for a clean sweep and
a replacement from captain to cook on all sides is clear, as we could
not possibly do worse than what obtains now even if we set out to.
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