Time to deal with the real ‘National Issues’

Editor: Greater “National Issues” seem to occupy Parliament’s time, like who shows up and who doesn’t, and “I wasn’t elected, I was appointed, but if I had been elected, I would have showed up,” while the really important “small stuff” creeps away from the spotlight. Like, the Chamber of Commerce is volunteering to clean up the waste dump that is Kingstown, and the CWSA (not a branch of the Government?) is begging the police to arrest and ticket, or at least provide some enforcement against the dumping of trash into rivers and streams, not just rurally, but in town, which is creating not only pollution, but flood risk.{{more}} Coreas is going to clean up the river along North River road. Else wise, Government isn’t hiding the PetroCaribe debt, just not declaring it, while the police are occupied with corralling “enemies of the state,” ignoring misdirected bypasses and detours on the Leeward Highway construction that lead to dead ends, or no signage back to the main road. Trucks are going the wrong way; cars (and ambulances) back up until a police car arrives to angrily re-direct the misguided.

What does the Government take responsibility for? Not health and sanitation, nor the demise of agriculture, accelerated by compelling traffickers to spend the money they earned selling St Vincent produce in Trinidad on Trinidadian goods that are then subject to prohibitive customs duties upon entry to St Vincent; not the spread of mosquito borne diseases, which the country is abjured to clean up for themselves. We can be drowned, polluted, misled, or attacked by large rodents in a town that smells of urine every Monday morning, but repression of dissension and demonization of the Opposition seem to be the most appropriate areas of priority for Government resource allocation. That, and dynastic power assurance. Otherwise, everything is fine and dandy! Hip-hip-hooray for Fearless Leader!

JOE