By: Vigilante
When Dr Denzil Douglas was the prime minister, every single day on every single talk show and opposition platform, the chorus from those who now sit in government headquarters was for the general public to know everything about the SIDF and the CBI programme. They wanted to know the number of passports being sold; they wanted to know how much money was in the SIDF. The complaints were endless. Now to hear Shawn, deputy prime minister, say that he doesn’t know how much money is in either fund is as laughable as it is sad. All these years, not one of them in the Cabinet knew how many passports have been sold and are being sold. What do they know, I wonder.
Symptomatic of the dysfunction of the government is the erection and commissioning of the traffic lights. Since early 2020, traffic lights were going up in so many intersections in downtown Basseterre that some of us wondered if there had been a going out of business sale on traffic lights somewhere. The lights went up with absolutely no conversation nor consultation with the people who would be most impacted. How can it make sense for the government to put traffic lights all over the place only to realize that to turn on some of the lights will create more problems than it will solve? That is why it took more than two years — twenty-four months — to turn on the traffic lights.
At Bird Rock, the lights are up but they are not on. It seems as if because the authorities were not able to bully the businesses most likely to be most negatively impacted into submission, everybody is being punished. After spending so much money making it into the KFC highway, the least the government can do is mark out the lanes and erect STOP signs appropriately. While “traffic lights saves lives,” every effort still has to be made to save lives even when the traffic lights are up but not on. Which brings me back to the point about common courtesy. Conversations. Consultations. Respect. But if the government ministers and parties don’t have respect for each other, why should I expect them to have any for us?