Citizens react to Govt’s one year in office

KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er

@guardian.co.tt

It’s been 365 days since the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) as­sumed of­fice, end­ing a decade-long stint on the op­po­si­tion bench­es.

Af­ter ten years in op­po­si­tion, the par­ty re-emerged with a fresh face.

Sev­er­al Cab­i­net mem­bers, in­clud­ing Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der and De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge, are new­com­ers to the po­lit­i­cal are­na, while the Prime Min­is­ter chose two for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) min­is­ters, John Je­re­mie and Kennedy Swarats­ingh, to sit on the Sen­ate bench.

The new Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar-led ad­min­is­tra­tion al­so came in­to of­fice with a man­i­festo filled with ma­jor promis­es to the na­tion, from re­duc­ing crime to eco­nom­ic growth.

With high ex­pec­ta­tions, the Gov­ern­ment has spent the last year un­der a na­tion­al mi­cro­scope as the coun­try watched and wait­ed to see what will come to pass with this new ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Over the re­cent weeks, Guardian Me­dia tra­versed the length and breadth of the coun­try from Port-of-Spain to San Fer­nan­do to San­gre Grande to find out if cit­i­zens feel those cam­paign promis­es have been kept and to hear their mes­sage for the Prime Min­is­ter’s one year in­to her term.

In the heart of Ch­agua­nas, many peo­ple praised the Prime Min­is­ter’s ef­forts, ac­knowl­edg­ing that it’s on­ly been one year, so they didn’t ex­pect her to achieve every­thing.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia at the Ch­agua­nas Mar­ket, one ven­dor Fa­ree­da Ar­joon said, “I’ll say con­tin­ue do­ing a good job and I ain’t ex­pect she to do all the things at one time. It’ll take time for she to do it be­cause she now come in in of­fice but I think peo­ple should give she a chance. She’ll do some­thing good.”

Sim­i­lar­ly, an­oth­er Ch­agua­nas mar­ket ven­dor Ra­jesh Be­har­ry said, “She’s do­ing a good job and she has good judge­ment on peo­ple and so far she’s do­ing a good job for the peo­ple. What I like is that she’s en­forc­ing the rules and the laws that were there all the time and no­body was en­forc­ing it. She’s en­forc­ing it now. Some peo­ple might vex but the right thing is the right thing.”

In Cara­po, one res­i­dent Cyn­thia Dass said, “She’s do­ing good yes and I wish her very good luck.”

But some cit­i­zens in the north ex­pressed a dif­fer­ent view, as they told Guardian Me­dia they be­lieve crime and un­em­ploy­ment are too high.

Thir­ty-one-year-old Port-of-Spain res­i­dent Wayne Joseph said, “The econ­o­my not good right now. The Gov­ern­ment not good right now. Crime swamp­ing Trinidad right now. It get­ting re­al out of hand.”

Laven­tille res­i­dent Mar­va Far­rell-Jones, 75, said, “I haven’t seen any progress in the coun­try yet be­cause a lot of peo­ple are still un­em­ployed. I think that they can do a lit­tle bet­ter.”

Echo­ing sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments, some Va­len­cia and San­gre Grande res­i­dents said they are dis­pleased with the lack of jobs, but are al­so frus­trat­ed over the in­creased fines. 

San­gre Grande farmer Glen­roy Car­ring­ton said, “If you have no work, you will go and thief by me and if you ain’t have no work, you’ll go and thief by Maraj, and this is what they’re bring­ing we to come to be­cause every­body ain’t have no work, every­body ain’t have no land, every­body ain’t get­ting no jus­tice.”

Speak­ing out about the in­creased fixed penal­ty fines, Va­len­cia res­i­dent Glen Singh said, “One year lat­er it’s a dis­grace, al­though I’m work­ing in the Gov­ern­ment, it’s still a dis­grace be­cause they give us the back­pay and they take it back in tick­et, so what’s the sense. You’re spin­ning top in mud... They start off nice and all of a sud­den changes just come un­ex­pect­ed­ly.” 

In Tu­na­puna, many young peo­ple ex­pressed their frus­tra­tions over the lack of em­ploy­ment as well.

And some res­i­dents ex­pressed con­cern over the Prime Min­is­ter’s abil­i­ty to lead the coun­try, ques­tion­ing the state of her health.

Look­ing ahead, res­i­dents in San Fer­nan­do told Guardian Me­dia that they be­lieve the Prime Min­is­ter should place more fo­cus on a par­tic­u­lar sec­tor of so­ci­ety. 

San Fer­nan­do street ven­dor Gas­ton Bourne said, “You see the poor peo­ple on the streets, that’s the peo­ple she has to help if she want to get back there for a next five years.”