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The quality of contributions from some of the persons elected by the voters to represent us in the country’s Parliament is frequen-tly absolutely mind-boggling. One very senior such person—who comes from a very well-connected and established political family, and is himself a very experienced parliamentarian—seeks to challenge the Government’s proposal to increase taxes on alcohol and tobacco, although he confesses to not himself being a smoker and only a very occasional drinker. His concern is supposedly centred on losses to be suffered by the less fortunate in the society (of which he knows very little except what he had been told) by the increases in taxes proposed by the Government. His disingenuous commitment to such disempowered persons is exemplified by the singular instance of a gentleman confined to a wheelchair who conducts his “hustling, bustling” business transactions in some unidentified location in Trinidad. For this multimillionaire politician, this is a model the country should promote. It is apparently his fervent belief that persons who are unemployable or otherwise unemployed should be facilitated by the State to enlarge, and benefit from, this underground economy, and thus earn an “honest” living. Such persons should be encouraged, according to our caring parliamentarian, to live in a twilight world, lost to the rest of humankind, and to suffer this fate for the rest of their lives. In fact, it appears to the dispassionate observer that this exemplar considers this to be some ideal to which the less fortunate should aspire, instead of the more dignified and responsible options that any moral human being, such as in the present Government, would want. The utter despair to which his government brought so many of our productive and responsible citizens is a world in which no sane person would want to live. The new Government has given us the hope and vision to aim for the stars, which is the least we deserve. The former government belongs in the dim, dark murky past to which they should be consigned forever, or at least for as long as it takes for them to come to the realisation that this country will no longer accept the tribulations of the last decade. Karan Mahabirsingh
