THE EDITOR:
I RECENTLY had causr to attend an interview via a written request from the Housing Developing Corporation (HDC) to discuss the Corporation’s plans to redevelop East Port of Spain.

I attended several meetings called by the HDC and not once did any official indicate that residents can object.

Or that consultations were a legal requirement of the Slums Clearance Act; or that all of this had to take place before the minister can agree to a plan.

Incidentally, can anyone in their right minds consider East Port of Spain a slum?

The whole nation knows of Housing Minister Keith Rowley’s outburst that government will have its way regardless of those who oppose.

He justified this position by suggesting that government will be accused of inaction.

Here we have a whole community being plunged into future uncertainty, social turmoil, depression, anxiety and economic retrogression, while Rowley and HDC chairman Noel Garcia talk and act as if these considerations are irrelevant to the so-called “greater good” of redevelopment.

Thank God the recalcitrance and opposition of residents have caused seepage of some of the information that was never and should have been, revealed to us about the “process” we must change our future to.

We have retained legal counsel and have galvanised ourselves under the “Is We Community Developers” so we know that we can object -- over 200 of us have done so.

The residents’ insistence on more information also rendered as highly impossible the claim by HDC that we owe about $200 million in rent.

To this end, I would like readers to work out the mathematics along with me:

For the purposes of this exercise, let us assume that none of the 682 tenants were paying the average of $15 per month since 1946 (when tenants first moved in).

By 2005 (last year) a total of 59 years would have past.

Therefore in one year at $15 per month, each tenant would owe $180; 682 tenants will owe $2,160; and in 59 years 682 tenants would owe $127,440.

Let us further assume that all 682 tenants were paying a monthly rent of $100 for the 10 years between 1995 and 2005 (representative of the present increase).

In one year at $100 per month each tenant would owe $1,200; 682 tenants would owe in one year $818,400; and in 10 years 682 tenants would owe $8,184,000.

If our calculation is correct, where has HDC got the figure of 200 million from?

Even if one were to add the total figure for rent at $15 for the entire 59 years to the 10-year period (1995 to 2005) at $100, the total sum owing would be $8,311,440.

In other words, not even $10 million.

Of course, the total sum owing to HDC will be much less if our assumption inluded actual rent paid.

I hope the public understands why I bluntly refused to sign anything at the end of the so-called interview-discussion with HDC’s Charles Bourgeois.

The resident’s are owed an apology and HDC must first act honestly and in good faith of its true intent, since no one opposes redevelopment.

It must, however, be done in accordance with the law and due consideraton of the interest of those who have dwelled there for several decades.

I am a diabetic, and moving is not an option, as is the case with the dozens of senior citizens and children who are close to medical facilities, schools, friends, families and neighbours in independent community relations no different to other poor communities in the country.

Development without re-location is the preferred method of approach.

The current approach is a Bourgeois attitude in which the proletariats have no say.

Editor’s Note: Singh’s mathematics must be carefully reviewed.

THE EDITOR:
IT is with deep sadness (not the Panday kind, the real kind) that I have

been looking on at the United National Congress (UNC) in the last week. All I can say is that the likes of Derek Ramsamooj and John La Guerre are correct -- the UNC is now no more and the Opposition simply does not exist.

It makes me wonder what the UNC campaign will be based on in the next election.

Corruption? Probably unlikely, since they are now crying for freedom for a man who has been caught with his pants down and cheque book in hand!

Crime? Probably unlike as well, since conviction in the courts only comes with crime and the UNC’s Kamla (hic*), Roodal (singing for supper), the sad Wade, J-J-J-Jack and corruption buster cum bandit defender Ramesh are adamant that Panday should be freed.

Government for the people? Now that would be a joke!

The UNC can’t hear, or just can’t understand the voices of the membership and have proven to be totally incompetent at managing an executive; so how the heck will they run a government?

Sympathy? Ah! We could be on to something here.

The UNC might mount a campaign that would “bring tears to your eyes”.

What that means is the beautiful, energy rich Trinidad and Tobago has two options: The corrupt People’s National Movement (PNM) that is smart enough to know how not to get caught and the corrupt UNC that is arrogant enough to think that they can’t get caught.

You choose!

THE EDITOR:
A GOVERNMENT is the parent, teacher and guardian of the people it governs, as it is supposed to be comprised of intellectuals looking over and educating its children, the people, with the loving, caring attitude of a parent, teacher or guardian.

As parents, it is their responsibility to lead by example with honesty and integrity, setting the pattern for their children to follow.

Our parents should be our role models, not by practicing corruption, taking bribes and violating their own set of rules and principles but by demonstration of their actions, with the people’s voice taking the lead, for “a little child shall be their leader.”

Is this the foundation that our society is built upon?

Instead, what do we see?

We see our parent, our teacher and guardian, which is the government, being deceptive to its own children, the people, by not practicing what it preaches.

In reality, we see our parent, our teacher, our guardian, the government, committing gross acts of wrongdoings over and over again right before our very eyes -- their children ... the people -- without showing any remorse or regret.

We their children, the people, know that what we see our parent and teacher continue to do is wrong.

Still we see our parent and teacher, the government, time and time again shamelessly and blatantly covering up the wrong acts they have committed, believing that we their children, the people, are too blind to see and too stupid to act; so they do not care because they know that they have not taught us the truth of equality and justice.

Our parent, our teacher and guardian -- the government -- has deceived us, their children, the people, with broken promises and false practices.

Our parent, while pretending to be good, has taught us lies, deceit, corruption, false pretence, anger, resentment, hatred, crime and violence.

We know our parent should teach us the right, yet teach us the wrong and then blame us for our actions, the same thing that they do.

We know they tell us we have the right to speak, they say it is our right but when we speak they tell us to shut up and be quiet; they don’t want to hear us speak because we don’t have the right to speak.

We see our parent, our teacher, the government bullying us, their children, the people, with injust laws and double standards.

We see them lie, steal and cheat without accountability.

What monkey see, monkey do.

Will our parent, our teacher, the government be held accountable for the dysfunctional actions of their children, the people that it governs in the similar manner that parents are held accountable for the actions of their children?

Democracy has failed society because true democracy is not being practiced.

THE EDITOR:
THIS is an open letter to Winston Dookeran.

This week’s political events have been profoundly educational for our country, so there is no need for you to provide us with definitions of “Old Politics” and “New Politics”.

This is now my understanding of “Old Politics” and “New Politics”:

Old Politics:

1. A grizzled party boss in prison for misfeasance as a Prime Minister whose Cabinet’s roster included Ministers, close friends and financiers on whom criminal charges of witness tampering, corruption and murder have been slapped.

2. A spiteful, tied-tongue, high profile political “Jammette” of self- confessed amorality, sporting a twisted cap and a fat cheque book, who has bought assorted politicians, a major political party, a national football team, and who is now bent on buying Indo Trinidad.

3. A Darth Vaderesque Machiavellian power-hungry neemakaram who has been charged for witness tampering.

New Politics:

A principled statesman of manifest integrity, striking dignity, genuine humility, deliberate and considerate utterances and actions, high achievement, experience in high public offices, economic acumen, essential gravitas, proven commitment to the people rather than to self-centered goals, while remaining unbowed and unbroken, unbought and unbossed; and composed and steadfast under withering and unrelenting enemy fire.

Even with Winston Dookeran’s imposing track record and character, it would take a creature of unsurpassed vanity to think that he could refloat the sinking ship fools that is the UNC today.

You are not that creature, Winston.
It is time for you to get off that ship of fools and throw out a lifeline to the honest politicians who still exist and to offer a life boat to a population perishing for want of new leadership.