THE EDITOR:
IT was the late Prime Minister, George Chambers, I think, who came up with the novel idea of top public servants answering questions from the public on his Meet the People tours.

The idea was of sound constitution, too, because the top public servants frame policy, give advice and implement political decisions.

Who suffers more from incompetence than the public?

Who takes the blame more than the politicians?

Let us wade through the haze of the new pasttime of “appreciation parties” and lavish “retirement send offs” (on taxpayers’ money) and get 10 questions through to the powerful ladies clique hiding behind the politicians:

1). Why with all the mega budgets are all the services to the public so bad? The politicians have given you the money and the structures.

2). Don’t you go on the ground and test the services yourself?

Put yourself in the shoes of the ordinary person.

3). Why does the Public Services Reform go on and on and on without results?

Are the consultants favoured?

Who chooses and monitors, the choosers?

4). Who decides whether senior public servants are incompetent or corrupt?

Do the disciplinary mechanisms work?

Or are there any for those at the top?

5). When a public servant is grossly incompetent and is identifiable -- like the one who framed the national gender policy -- why isn’t she made to resign or retire?

6). What are the significant contributions in the last five years by the two top most public servants -- the head of the Public Service and the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Public Administration?

Not one. Contributed to the brain drain?

7). Doesn’t the head of the Public Service prepare efficiency reports and insist on efficiency reports from each ministry at least once yearly?

8). Don’t the top public servants meet yearly or bi-yearly to survey and remedy the mess they have created?

To pull up their own?

To break up cliques that contribute to inefficiency nepotism and corruption -- the same things the public accuses the politicians of?

9). Aren’t the top public servants -- the Accountant General, the Auditor General, the Permanent Secretary Public Administration, the head of the Public Service especially -- aware of the colossal waste of money that goes on daily in government agencies?

10). To the Director of Public Administration (Acting), is it possible for a small clique to mislead the appointing body into making appointments that that clique wants?

Is this not destroying the fabric of independence of the Services Commissions?

Finally, to the prime minister: Don’t you wish you had Permanent Secretaries less qualified but more competent?

Less reports and more productive work?

Less reform and more commitment to making the present instruments work?

If you cannot dismiss or discipline, do the least thing: reshuffle the pack of jokers, and break up the cliques.

Later, have independent quarterly assessments on their achievements.

Then fire them!

My personal fear is that if they perform so badly when things are good what will happen if things suddenly go bad.

THE EDITOR:
THE Joint Select Committee (JSC) headed by Professor Ramesh Deosaran has been able to bring out in Parliament many of the irregularities in the Police Service.

It is now up to the authorities to act with haste in getting rid of the officers who bring the Service into disrepute.

It is unfortunate that the JSC meetings in Parliament have not been carried live by the electronic media in order for citizens to become more aware of the many irregularities in the Police Service.

Allegations about a senior officer involved in kidnappings have been brought up more than once in Parliament but these have been vehemently denied by police authorities.

There have also been allegations against many other officers.

Rogue cops are normally suspended with full pay even though it is obvious that they have committed a serious offence.

The suspension in many instances goes on for years at the end of which most of the offenders are reinstated for one reason or the other.

I am sure the JSC will recommend in its final report the removal of those who fail to act in the best interest of the Police Service.

The problem is whether the government and the Parliament will act quickly and decisively to clean up the Police Service of rogue elements.

It will be a tough task since many of the corrupt cops will do all in their power to defend their turf.

However, I encourage the authorities to show strength and make the appropriate decisions without fear or favour.

Many decent and qualified cops are frustrated that the rogues among them continue to do as they please.

These good officers in the Police Service are likely to be victimised, discriminated against or even murdered if they squeal on their corrupt colleagues.

I have been encouraged to write this article by some policemen who want war to be declared on their rogue colleagues.

Over the years, some senior officers have come to the defence of rogue cops by frequently denying that many of them are involved in corruption and other criminal acts.

However, the information coming out of the JSC meetings in Parliament, which I have attended, prove otherwise.

Professor Deosaran and his committee members should be praised because they are not in the business of any cover-up.

They want rogue cops removed from the Service but they must get support from the people who can take appropriate action against these officers.

The authority must act now or face the consequences of increased crimes caused by corrupt cops.

THE EDITOR:
MOST of our major roadways are named after people who are deserving to Trinbago, but some are named after people who aren’t.

There are names for Butler (formerly Princess Margaret), Hochoy, Claude Noel, Audrey Jeffers and Wendy Fitzwilliam, deserving yes; but why are we still holding on to names such as Churchill-Roosevelt, Lady Young, Lady Hailes, and Beetham, all from our colonial past?

I thought that Trinbago was independent.

There is a major roadway used by many more motorists every day than any of the others, yet it is still called after the city engineer of the day who was not even the one who constructed it.

This is Wrightson Road the person responsible was Ramjit Kumar, all he has is a small road in St. James, in his name. This artery should be renamed after him, for without him the area would have been a swamp, and development along there would not be what it is.

Is he still being punished for what Cipriani and the governor at the time thought of him for organising the Indians.

THE EDITOR:
PRIME MINISTER Patrick Manning would be the biggest political fool, clown and all that kind of thing to fall for the baiting of people like Gail Merhair and Paul Quesnel of TTMA and assume the portfolio of National Security.

First of all he would be going against the political principles he holds fundamental because he has said more than once that he does not believe that the PM should hold the National Security portfolio.

He did take it for a brief period in his first administration, I know. Panday criticised him then, saying a PM should never be the Minister.

But Senator Joseph Theodore backed Ramesh to become the Deputy Political Leader of the United National Congress (UNC) and while he was “investigating” alleged London property and bank accounts, Panday refused to put him on the back as a senator and took the portfolio himself for the whole of 2002.

But before year’s end, he was throwing his hands up in the air saying that “we will never win the war on crime”.

Strange, there was no reported outcry from the likes of Merhair and Quesnel or their organisations when crime (murders) propelled from 99 in 2000 to 118 in 2001 to a then record high of 153 in 2002!

Merhair sees the Death March being a watershed.

She is now smiling and licking her chops with glee!

But a record of 153 murders in 2002 -- was that not a watershed, Merhair?

But you shed no water (tears) in that year?

Look at some of the record-breaking murders in that historic years -- a man wounded in an attempt on his life and hospitalised, was pumped with bullets while he lay in a bed at Port of Spain Hospital; a murder at the Prime Minister’s residence; a family of three or four chopped to death (and that included two children one of whom was a deaf-mute in a wheelchair).

Over an hour, undertakers were picking up pieces of flesh from the floor, the walls and the ceiling.

Merhair, perhaps had not yet got back her tongue from the cat. And Quesnel was either out of the country or not in a position to talk then, as a big pappy!

So, Manning, keep the faith, man!

The break will come if you conscientiously believe that what your government is doing is right and good.

THE EDITOR:
GOD’S love, faithfulness, justice, purity, holiness, power, unchangeablness and his faultless judgement are estbalished parts of his nature and the more we focus on these attributes and understand them the safer our voyage across the sea of life.

On Thursday, October 6, 2005, at about 8.45 p.m., gun shots rang out at pole No. 21 Upper, Belmont Valley Road behind a small wooden video store located there.

The shot was fired at the storekeeper named Junior Davis who dug his fingers into the loose dirt where his body fell as the breath of life God gave him, left his body.

The murderers then dumped the body at a garbage bin at the bottom of Maryland Hill, Belmont, not far from where he was killed. Investigators were called on the scene by passers-by at about 6.20 a.m. the following morning.

Junior Davis’ death is not a mystery, it is the talk in the neighbourhood and it is clearly known as to who killed him. Some of his belongings were found, even blood stains still remain there, and these young men sit proud and bold because the devil continuously deceives them into believing they are untouchable.

And yet there is no police investigation.

No officers investigated such crime. Let me inform you that Junior Davis was not a gang member or a drug dealer so there is no gang to revenge his innocent death.

The motive behind his death is unknown and we the people in the community are looking forward to have some disciplinary action taken over this murder.

I cry out to the Lord with these words at Habakuk 1v:4: “The law is paralysed and justice never prevails.”

Now I am asking the people in authority, do they believe in God and his attributes. Can people in authority please show some kind of interest in the safety of people’s lives.

Can Junior Davis’ death please be investigated!