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'Teacher Lucy'



May Day is significant both as a spring festival in the northern climes and of course as the International Labor Day. The latter was started in the 19th century by the communists and socialists and strangely enough in commemoration of an event in Chicago.
May 1st on the Rock is just that May 1st. Within recent times a couple trade unions have recognized the day but our big labor celebration is on another day. On the Rock, you get to celebrate Labor Day twice and get paid for it.

The dreaded SEA examine is happening this week and if you somehow forgot one is reminded by the number of photo-ops taken by persons of import. These persons visit schools hand out 'SEA packs' (consisting of pens, pencils and other trinkets), call for all God's best wishes on the poor children and to me scare the hell out of these kids who are about to sit an exam that will mark them forever. The SEA is as bad as it gets and to further stress the kids is simply not something that should be allowed. I understand that there is to be yet another change in the SEA starting next year which will further cause fallout from those children who do not enjoy the top academic positions. So we will be celebrating the 99.99% average score, determine the winner - boys and girls, and banish the rest to a life of great difficulty. Ban the SEA!

The PMOTT's reaction to the Venezuelan 'refugee crisis' has raised some eyebrows. The Archbishop of Port of Spain has called the action taken by the Leader as 'stingy'. When the PMOTT made the statement about 'no one will allow T&T to turn into a refugee camp' was very unfortunate, to say the least. The government was wrong in how they carried out the exercise all very clandestine and they need to understand that. This is a neighbor in trouble and the citizens of Venezuela will remember the actions. Regimes come and go, but we will still be living here and our neighbors likewise. Not one word of comfort, simply 'get out, now'. Very stingy indeed.

I keep saying that something is very wrong with this administration whereby every single move they make something goes dreadfully wrong. After Sunday's revelation by the Minister of Finance that the Ministry of Energy got the revenue figure wrong and to date there is nothing conclusive from any of the Ministries involved. Today is day three of a misinformed statement that will greatly affect our international standing and neither Minister can confirm what is what? We do not know as yet how does the S&P gather the information required? This is the umpteenth time the Rock is being rated. What is the traditional way of reporting revenue figures? Is it an estimated total revenue or is it an actual revenue and who is supposed to compile the information and how is the figure audited? This is not 'Teacher Lucy' school statistics, this is the Government of Trinidad and Tobago.
The same way we cannot get audited figures for anything whether ticket sales for Tobago Jazz Experience or School Feeding and everything in between or who authorized the payment of $150,000.00 in hush money the same way we will never know what happened with S&P.

People are constantly asking me what 'are we doing?' Meaning what if anything is happening with our politics. I smile and say 'soon'. What else can I say, I have no idea. The citizens of the Rock have to decide how they want to move the country forward. The quicker they work this out the better. The one thing I will say is that what is there now will not take us further and therefore a new political direction must be determined. Yes, it can happen!

Good night people of the Rock and good luck, you may just need it!



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