Leader of the Opposition Dr. Keith Rowley has developed a proclivity and penchant towards political contradiction. Faced with an almost insurmountable task of leading resistance against Government’s developmental objectives, in order to give political oxygen to his gasping Opposition, Dr. Rowley’s consummate consistency has become his inconsistency.
Speaking in the Parliament on the motion to increase Government’s debt ceiling, the Opposition Leader advanced arguments against spending on infrastructural projects which would have been more relevant had he made them three years ago. It was an accomplished dissertation on public sector debt, failing only in chronological relevance.
His argument that Government’s initiative was capable of throwing “public sector’s finances in a tailspin” would have scored highly for political significance had he done so when he sat in the nation’s Cabinet and condoned “skyscraper projects” before the provision of essential services. He would have won marks for political sincerity had he as a Minister condemned PNM’s rampant spending in defiance of the then Central Bank’s warning of an inflationary tsunami.
His specific reference to the cost of the south-bound highway project was a psychological molestation of the aspirations of the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago who consider the greatest catalyst for development as physical mobility.
Speaking in the Parliament on the motion to increase Government’s debt ceiling, the Opposition Leader advanced arguments against spending on infrastructural projects which would have been more relevant had he made them three years ago. It was an accomplished dissertation on public sector debt, failing only in chronological relevance.
His argument that Government’s initiative was capable of throwing “public sector’s finances in a tailspin” would have scored highly for political significance had he done so when he sat in the nation’s Cabinet and condoned “skyscraper projects” before the provision of essential services. He would have won marks for political sincerity had he as a Minister condemned PNM’s rampant spending in defiance of the then Central Bank’s warning of an inflationary tsunami.
His specific reference to the cost of the south-bound highway project was a psychological molestation of the aspirations of the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago who consider the greatest catalyst for development as physical mobility.
Reduced mobility impedes development while greater mobility is a medium through which society expands. The thrust for a successful completion of the highway project is geared towards creating a literal pathway for greater development of a part of the country neglected by the PNM for decades.
Had the Government decided to delay its completion would incurred greater financial loss, inconvenience to the public and loss of meaningful jobs. Had this project been discontinued temporarily, hundreds would have been put on the breadline providing ammunition for some to suggest that the Government was being discriminatory in its employment thrust. Propagandists who rely on the “ethnic card” would have extended the “crime hot-spots” theory into the realm of “employment cold-spots”.
The elected Opposition under Westminster is clearly in a political tailspin descending rapidly into irrelevance in and out of the nation's Parliament.
Had the Government decided to delay its completion would incurred greater financial loss, inconvenience to the public and loss of meaningful jobs. Had this project been discontinued temporarily, hundreds would have been put on the breadline providing ammunition for some to suggest that the Government was being discriminatory in its employment thrust. Propagandists who rely on the “ethnic card” would have extended the “crime hot-spots” theory into the realm of “employment cold-spots”.
The elected Opposition under Westminster is clearly in a political tailspin descending rapidly into irrelevance in and out of the nation's Parliament.
The credible and meaningful alternatives that one expected have not been forthcoming. Instead the nation is confronted with conspicuous political contradictions, symptomatic of a political party which is in a state of emergency; stuck in intellectual comatose and exhausted from continuous political defeat.
Ashvani Mahabir | Attorney-at-Law & Research Consultant
Ashvani Mahabir | Attorney-at-Law & Research Consultant
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