THE EDITOR:
EVERYWHERE you go there are people walking around the streets pretending they are working.

It is called make-work projects.

Government admitted in Parliament last week that approximately $40 million are spent monthly on CEPEP and URP.

What are we getting for this kind of money.

Barrels are placed in front of homes to collect residential garbage.

The vagrants scavenging at nights, empty the contents onto the streets and drains.

In the morning CEPEP and URP passes by one after the other and sweep back up the garbage into the bins.

Drains in the area are flowing all the way up to the manhole covers, but no one cares about that.

These workers are only here for one thing; to say the ruling party gave them work.

Their job description probably reads like this:

With tool in hand, walk a few steps and stop.

Look around. Walk a few more steps then stop, preferably in a shaded area.

If there are no shaded areas walk until you find one.

Complain about the bosses, or the job, or about the approximately $100 million the government is spending every day with nothing tangible to show for it.

Walk a few more steps so as to show you are putting down wuk.

If the area is boring, move to another street or hide behind a wall.

Walk a few more steps then take a coffee break.

If you are CEPEP, shift lasts six hours, five days a week.

If URP, you are not so lucky, only two hours per day.

There is no workman compensation for on-the-job injuries, because there is no OSHA Bill.

Supervisors must walk with a pen and plenty paper in your hands.

No classroom training as was promised.

For this you are allowed (forced) to share some of this hard-earned cash with your boss, or better yet to show him a good time by shaking your booty if you are a woman.

How enterprising.

I would like to shake the hand of the genius of this make-work brainchild.

Or is it the genius with the brain of a child?

The best country in the world!

THE EDITOR:
THE Opposition United National Congress (UNC) strongly condemns the action taken to prohibit members of the Oilfield Workers’ Trade Union (OWTU) from entering the Parliament’s public gallery on December 13, 2005.

This is clearly another attempt by the government to trample on the rights of citizens, especially the rights of working class.

We dismiss as nonsense, the government’s excuse that the union members were not properly attired.

Judging from the images shown in the media, the union members were respectably dressed.

We saw nothing that indicated that the union members’ apparel was contrary to the Parliament’s dress code. The government was in fact, annoyed with the message displayed on the jerseys and that is why the union members were not allowed into the Parliament.

We are saddened that affairs in this country has disintegrated to the point where the government can simply manipulate certain rules and codes to trample on the fundamental rights of peaceful, law-abiding citizens.

Why does the mere mention of the OSHA legislation send the PNM into spasms of panic?

Do they feel guilty for all the lives lost due to their delays in implementing the Act?

Why else would they fear a simple jersey with the words “Implement the OSH Act Now”?

It should be noted that during the United National Congress (UNC) tenure in government, trade union members were allowed to enter the Parliament, clad in their jerseys, to protest whatever matter they wanted without any let or hindrance.

In other words democracy flourished under the UNC.

It is ironic that the same dress code that was used to prevent the union from entering Parliament is the same code that is being continually violated by the PNM every time goverment members enter the Parliament with their balisier ties and lapel pins on display.

This grave injustice must not go unnoticed.

The UNC wishes to express full solidarity with the OWTU, and pledges to use every means at its disposal in the next Parliamentary session to expose the PNM’s hypocrisy and their increasing anti-worker and anti-poor people sentiments.

THE EDITOR:
THE disbelief of Jehovah’s Witnesses in blood transfusions is based on their belief that the Bible is God’s words.

But, since a baby’s life was involved in this particular matter, there are some fundamental questions that citizens and our leaders should ask about the relationship between religion and the State.

I have six:

1). Why did we need to go to court to save a child?

Given that time is a factor in saving the baby’s life, shouldn’t there be a standard procedure in such cases?

2). Was it a breakdown of “law” or of “culture” that led to one baby dying and another being put at risk greater than the risks that come with premature birth?

3). Do parent’s rights override a child’s?

Now they were easy.

Other questions follow from these three.

If we assume that secularism and only evidence and reason is appropriate in the discussion that shapes law and policy then we must ask the following:

4). Does a parent/guardian have the right to impart their unsupported belief on their child/charge?

5). Are religious schools ethical?

6). Are the religious bodies who encourage parents to such criminal negligence culpable in any way?

If anyone has any answers, I would love to be enlightened.

If you have more questions, I may not have the answers either.

But I guarantee debate of the highest quality, something lacking in our culture where prejudice, not enquiry, appears the pattern.