Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Letter: The JCC's review raises serious questions

In Trinidad and Tobago, just like America, the ‘N word’ is very offensive. Unlike America, another offensive word in Trinidad and Tobago is the ‘C word’, because Chicago has a famous school called Cooley High, named after an outstanding US citizen, Thomas M. Cooley. 

Hollywood even made a film about Cooley High. I am positive now Senator James Armstrong is not an American. If he was I would have changed his first name to ‘Benedict’.

The Senator recently selected his JCC independent highway review team. Only one Trinidadian of Indian descent was chosen by him to undertake the important exercise for which Dr Wayne Kublalsingh, an ‘Indian’, had sacrificed. 

That single 'Indian’ is Kenneth Subran, a retired Commissioner of Valuations. When shall the discrimination against ‘Indians’ in Trinidad and Tobago end? 

What is naturally wrong or repulsive about my fellow citizens of Indian descent that they must be continually regarded with scorn and treated with disdain when selecting persons to undertake public assignments is involved?

Only two conclusions could be drawn from the facts as outlined above:

One, that Senator Armstrong feels the JCC independent review team is his personal property because he is an ‘independent’ senator and the boss of the team.

Two, that he's living in a Twilight Zone, where everything south of the Caroni is 'Indian' territory, so 'Indian' involvement has to be kept at a minimum if the JCC highway review team is to appear 'independent' in the eyes of the public.

In the first case, it is not: he was chosen for his integrity and depth of experience in the area of human settlements.

Which means the second case is true, in which case we might as well tear up our Independence and go back to the days when descendants of Indians and Africans people couldn't vote or sit on juries in Trinidad or Tobago

In either case, it’s an insult to our National Watchwords, ‘Together We Aspire. Together We achieve.”

As I understand it, the JCC independent highway review team came about due to the fast of an 'Indian' named Wayne Kublalsingh. It is public knowledge that the team was to be established from persons who’d volunteered their services free of charge, being driven, as they led the public to believe, by patriotism and the need for transparency. 

Suddenly, I’m hearing taxpayers have to pay them over $7.5m! What is this? Are we being taken for two rides at the price of one ticket? Was the whole ‘affair’ outside the Prime Minister’s office just a ploy to ‘eat ah food’?

I pray to God that the Prime Minister steels her nerve and puts her foot down against their outlandish demand. 

At $1,500 a pop, that $7.5m could provide Christmas hampers to 5,000 needy families. Not one of Senator Armstrong’s team fits the needy category! Don’t pamper them! They can’t hamper anything but their own credibility if they refuse to review unless remunerated!

I hope Dr Kublalsingh now understands how the fruit of his unnecessary sacrifice has further poisoned his standing in the eyes of all independently-and-right-thinking citizens as a result of the cynical manner the farce called 'JCC independent highway review team' has been put together. He is a Doctor of Letters. Once my letter is published, he would read it and would.

Jayerson Skinner | Arouca.

No comments:

Jai & Sero

Jai & Sero

Our family at home in Toronto 2008

Our family at home in Toronto 2008
Amit, Heather, Fuzz, Aj, Jiv, Shiva, Rampa, Sero, Jai