Campaign Promises & Governance in A Nation that Almost Never Was

Trinidad & Tobago is a middle aged man with a “dad bod” who for the sake of this article I’m going to call Andre. Andre makes $8,000 a month but his monthly expenses come up to about $12,000. Additionally his mother ‘taxes’ half his salary because she brought him into the world. In reality Andre only has $4000 a month to pay rent, buy groceries, lime with his friends and save for the future. At the end of the first year Andre’s debt would be $48,000. After ten years of living like this, his debt would be $480,000.  This calculation excludes interest, and we know that in today’s free market economy ALL debt attracts interest. The $4000 that Andre gives to his mother, represents the transfers and subsidies we spend on programmes like CEPEP, state funded entities like WASA and T&TEC and public servant salaries.

Andre has a cousin Merle who works at one of the government parks. Her job requires her to open and close the park.  Every morning Merle rolls half a joint and settles in to watch a movie. Merle collects her salary, and if you were to ask her to do anything outside of opening and closing the gate, she will tell you “that is not in her job description.” 

Like Andre, Merle has a cousin but this cousin has a “good job” at a bank. She went to UWI using GATE funding and although she’s gotten two promotions, she still can’t afford to buy a house. 

The challenge facing the leaders of all the political parties currently vying for office is how to make policies that benefit Merle, her cousin and their dependents while saving for the future. He or she will also have to work with the Minister of Finance to ensure that there’s something left over to help Merle and her cousin in the event of a natural disaster or unforeseen tragedy. If it's a tragedy on the scale of Paria, Andre needs to find a million dollars for each affected family. 

None of this is of course easy. The reality is that Merle and her cousin want vastly different things out of life. Merle does not want to work any harder and her cousin is probably already “burnt out.” Both of them however expect quality healthcare, free education, unlimited foreign exchange, and smooth roads. Every election season in Trinidad, people like Merle and her cousin are promised housing, land and other goodies to secure their vote - Robin Hood style. This is not what our nation needs but Andre likes being in charge; is willing to do just about anything to stay in charge, and most importantly he has to keep his mother and Merle happy.

If Andre were my friend I would tell him that he needs therapy, which in this scenario is constitutional reform. He needs to learn to tell his mother “No” and chart his own path. A path free from colonial baggage like that  pesky “savings clause,” and the fear and distrust that threatened to derail our independence talks in 1962. 

Fact: Eric Williams and Dr. Rudranath Capildeo fought bitterly in the days leading up to our Independence. When we were eventually granted Independence, Capildeo who was the Opposition leader said, “It is well to realise at the outset that a constitutional framework provides little shelter and no safeguard against those who are ruthlessly determined to act unconstitutionally.”

From where I sit the fear, distrust and lack of confidence that informed Capildeo’s words have infected every institution in our society. It is this toxic mix that birthed our Concordat and Service Commissions. It has also enabled our police force and judiciary to operate with a level of impunity that continues to shock us, when it really shouldn’t. 

We created ALL the ills that we complain so bitterly about. We know that we are doing education all wrong, that we have forgotten how to feed ourselves, and as a result crime and corruption have eroded the fabric of our society. 

We know that we need to take a hard look at the individual decisions we make, yet  still we seem incapable of making different choices. We could eat seasonally but we prefer to have corn flakes for breakfast. Our developers could build gated communities with not just green space but a community garden and fruit trees, but they don’t. We could decide to teach sex education, civics and financial literacy starting in primary school but we don’t. The reality is that we seemingly can’t agree on the importance of any of these things, or how they should be done. Instead we choose to complain bitterly about the consequences of not doing them and say it is the government that needs to fix it. 

I personally think that we must like the entrenched differences that our systems create because we have never tried in sixty plus years to change them. We are a risk averse people, who feign surprise that some groups are able to build generational wealth that others will never achieve. 

We know that 40,000 hours are required to achieve mastery. If a man is a shopkeeper or a salesman and a good one at that; there is a greater probability that his children will know the basics of how to spot opportunities, run a business and save and invest before they ever step foot in a university lecture hall. 

Similarly, if a child is good with their hands or naturally gifted at music, there is no reason why we can’t teach them how to do these things while learning math, english, civics and social studies alongside whatever trade they prefer. Sending unprepared children into secondary schools that are designed ONLY to accommodate the academically inclined is a recipe for a host of societal ills. Stressing 12 year old children out by forcing them to write an exam that “decides” their future is also diabolical to me. Earlier today a friend confessed that 27 years ago today, he was getting at least one question wrong in Social Studies and Science and that the wrong answers bothered him for a while. He even remembered the question. That is generational trauma. 

These are the policy decisions and systematic changes that I wish our leaders would consider. These are the types of conversations that I wish our media and opinion columnists would try to start, instead of the rage porn and fear mongering that comprises the daily news. Personally I just want us to grow up before it’s too late. Before our economy is tanked completely by forces outside of our control, and where our grand children will not be able to afford any of the basics, because they’ll be too busy paying off Andre’s debt.