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' a ferry is not a fairy'








It has been a difficult couple days, listening to the Joint Select Committee of the Parliament hearings on basically the issues surrounding the Tobago ferry service and my brain has been in 'ferry mode' since.
I had my stint yesterday evening and I was glad to be able to make my case. I had submitted a written  position on a number of issues surrounding the issue. I do find that many times the presentations drift off into areas that really are not for this Committee. I would have thought that the representative from Bridgeman's would have been given enough time to give his side of the story. That has not happened and I am not sure what the position would be as they have been asked to return, if they want, sometime after the 18th September, or submit their position in writing.
I was not given a time frame to work with and all of a sudden I was told that I had two [2] minutes to wrap up. So be it, I guess the public will now have to hear my side through another forum.

Can you ever imagine being in a Cat 5 hurricane? The poor islands of the north, we have frequented them many times and its terrible to think of the devastation to the islands' infrastructure and housing stock. Apparently Barbuda has been severely hit with practically 90% of its buildings severely damaged. And now to add insult to injury Hurricane Jose is right on the heels of Irma and basically on the same trajectory. I guess the naysayers of climate change will find some foolish excuse this time, maybe too much hot air at Mar a Largo causing a weather front or something like that. I would love to know what was the highest temperature recorded to date in Trinidad for this year and if it was not a record? We have lived in the same house for 35 years and I don't know if it is age [ not the house] but this year there were days with a heat that I have never felt  before.

Talking to many people recently I find that the population is starting to talk seriously about how despondent they are feeling. Business people saying how bad business is and there is a general malaise in the society. Crime and violence obviously playing a major part in our every day lives. The economic future, job security, registration at some of the big carnival bands not being what it has been in previous years. Don't steups, band registration is a very good economic indicator. It tells you where the middle class is, if an additional annual $10,000.00 of disposal income is now a problem then we as a country have a problem. Hey, some economic indicators use the price of a Big Mac in various countries.
What I find extremely disturbing is the complete lack of hope, vision and ideas to take us forward. The only words we hear is doom and gloom. Is it that this administration is clueless, is it that there is not a single idea being put forward as to how we weather this Cat 5 storm we have found ourselves in? This cannot be the position of this government. The PMOTT must be in a position to steer us out of this mess. To simply talk about the price of oil and gas and to blame the rest of the world on T&T's financial woes or better, the past administration, is not going to cut it. After two full years in office this administration's slip is showing and the nation is now realizing that they do not have the answer to a sinking economy. This is a very dangerous position for us to be in!

Listening to the stakeholders today before the JSC in Tobago, tell their story of the effect of the collapsed sea bridge on their lives and businesses was extremely disturbing. You spend the better part of your life building your own business and because of gross incompetence on the part of an administration that has zero compassion and empathy for its people you are now close to losing everything. The Government Senator on the JSC, Franklin Khan, made light of the whole situation basically telling Tobago too bad, so what if there was a little inconvenience, so what if the ferry service was not up to scratch, soon it would be fixed. Unbelievable, it seems that Tobago has taken a hit and that's that.

I am extremely annoyed over the handling of the ferry service by this administration for the single reason that it has created such problems for citizens for no reason other than greed! It is greed that has created the problems in the ferry service, let them dispute that!


Thinking constantly of our northern neighbors and winds reaching 180 mph flying around your house, unimaginable!

Goodnight people and good luck!









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