Dr. Rowley’s Dilemma

 

I almost feel sorry for the man. For after his tireless efforts to get the government, of which he was a part, to address the issue of corruption. He found himself in the political dog house and in a heated battle with his former leader and “captain” whom he vowed to deal with as the ship docks.

Since the May 24th Election defeat he has been trying his utmost best to rebuild his party and to retain and pull back the lost support. In this regard, I will not fault him at all. I indicated via one of the Social Networks that Dr. Rowley CANNOT be blamed for the diminished support of the PNM, all blame must be placed squarely at the feet of the former leader and his party executive and that three months is in no means to conclude that he has failed. The leader for his arrogant attitude toward opposition and the executive for their silence as the leader carried on with his “know-it-all style”. No one supported the one man who saw it coming.

However, after all that has happened, it would seem that it’s now business as usual, the age old game of politics rein supreme in that we jump up and spew the usual rhetoric in an attempt and hope to score “political points”, this in itself is skewed and must be redefined. The political points must not be related to the rubbish that comes out of your head, rather the political points must be based on what positive and nation building ideas can be put forward.

In his latest attempt at boosting support (blind loyalty) he has decided to take the Government to task their decision to, as he puts it. “shut down” the country in light of the possibility of a hurricane on Friday last. Speaking at the People's National Movement (PNM) Women's League seminar at Balisier House on Saturday, he said “the entire country was shut down because of a cloud”. Stating that it was a "governance issue", he went on to accuse the Government of using the recent floods around the country to "play themselves" before the public as do-gooders.

But it did not end there, he went further to attack the staff of the ODPM, stating that "In their desperation to please, they shut the country down since yesterday morning, causing millions of dollars in losses—more than what would have been caused by a storm". "We suffered losses," Rowley said, later adding: "I hope that every time it looks like it's going to rain we will not shut the country down and be subjected to a 20-minute speech by the Prime Minister, who clearly is not in charge of the situation." I wonder how this cost was determined and was it applied to lives and property which could have been lost?

After this had blown up in his face he shifted to damage control. Via a press release Dr. Rowley sought to explain what he meant by his initial remarks toward the the decision to “shut down” the country. This time using science to support his point. Whilst he indeed has a point, no one can ever be to prepared and the weather experts merely make forecasts, meaning this is probable but not definite either way. My issue is that in this country several areas, POS in particular, floods badly with regular rainfall, and considering that there was a possibility of a hurricane (we are in hurricane season) it would be wise to get people home so they can secure their homes and most importantly their loved ones, especially considering our poor infrastructure in terms of dealing with normal flooding far less disasters.

In her response to all this the Prime Minister indicated that she did not ask workers to go home, it was the schools that were asked to send children home, people took it upon themselves to leave work. Now, it’s better she had just shut up, Dr. Rowley did enough to make her look good for her to make this foolish statement.

What I have learnt from this is that there must be a properly designed plan to evacuate people in cases of emergencies. Whilst we can ask people to go home because of a possible storm we must also ensure that the proper systems are in place for this to be a smooth process.

We have a lot of work to do, the cheap politics has no role to play. We need leaders who can put this aside and work together for the development of our country and its people.

 

Read also Express Editorial: A cloud over Dr. Rowley