Letter: London's delay in reporting on BOLT deal hurting himself and PNM

In institutions such as banks and co-operatives, where the Board of Management's term of office is for a fixed period following an election called for the purpose, it is the norm for comprehensive Management Reports to be presented at regular intervals and when the period ends, so that stakeholders would be fully apprised of all that transpired and whether what transpired was in order or amiss. 

Such a culture needs to be inculcated in our governmental institutions in my opinion, in that accounting for one's performance ought not to be left or reserved solely for the election campaign trail. 

The time has come for the necessary laws to be amended or created to require our nationally and locally elected bodies to furnish to the President (for public dissemination) a written account of their accomplishments during their terms of office complete with acceptable justifications and explanations for every cent spent or not spent. Accordingly, I so recommend.

If such laws were already in place, we would not be witnessing the ongoing and somewhat overbearing spectacle of the THA's Chief Secretary bobbing and weaving to avoid or delay accounting to national oversight authorities concerning the MILSHIRV and other deals. 

Those deals, their details and implications, if you recall, were only brought to the public's attention by an alert media and the likes of Mr Reginald Dumas, after everything was sealed. 

Just that fact alone is sufficient ground for a mighty colonnade of red flags to be raised as to what else might have been undertaken and for the summoning of an emergency stakeholders' meeting to grill the THA Executive.

The Chief Secretary is a former teacher. In my brief sojourn on earth I have already learned even the most intractable or undeserving person sometimes get what teachers refer to as "a do-over moment". 

My advice to him is he recognize he's confronted with a do-over moment and seize it for all its worth: he must decide whether he wants history to record him as an essential player who helped restore the public's trust in the PNM, or as the one who drove the final nail in the PNM's coffin (which precisely what shall happen if he persists in upholding the PNM status quo of fiscal irresponsibility, the very thing the majority of Tobagonian voters in 2010 showed how much they detested).

Mouttet, Leslie | St Lucien Road, Diego Martin, Trinidad