No honeymoon for Kamla
Kamla Persad-Bissessar..TT's first female Prime Minister
Kamla was unable to partake of the eats and drinks at her inauguration yesterday as she had to rush to see about business-flooding in central and south Trinidad.
The People’s Partnership whipped up a mighty political storm that blew away the formidable People’s National Movement (PNM)- but , literally, on day one in office the victors found themselves in flood waters in their strongholds in Central and South Trinidad.
Things were so bad that new Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar had to forego the refreshments after being sworn in to see the damage first hand and hold talks with the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Management (ODPM) to deal with the situation which many residents in low-lying areas are faced with annually.
Today, Kamla and others were back in the field with United National Congress (UNC) chairman Jack Warner, who retained his Chaguanas West seat garnering an astounding 18,000-plus votes affirming that because of the distress suffered by his constituents he was changing his mind about being a backbencher and would now accept a cabinet post.
Minister of the People, perhaps, or a similar creation by the new administration, which proposes to have a Ministry of Legal Affairs, an Attorney General and a Minister of Justice as separate ministries. The cabinet postings will be announced tomorrow when, hopefully, the PNM would have made up its mind on kicking out Patrick Manning.
The honeymoon may still be on but the wedding feast has been put on hold as the reality of running Trinidad and Tobago impacts on the new Government immediately.
Kamla spoke about working on an early budget and she may discover that the party will be unable to balance the 2010-2011 budget just as her predecessors were unable to balance the current one, having to fashion a deficit of almost $8 billion.
Things may not be that gloomy as gas and oil prices recovered admirably over the past 12 months and are well over the budgetted figures but the party’s promises of $3,000 monthly pensions for senior citizens, a $20 an hour minimum wage and the scrapping of increased property taxes will certainly look unrealistic in terms of Government’s revenues.
In other words, the new administration will have no alternative but to put these promises on the backburner, particularly, when it has to contend with wage negotiations from several sections of the public sector.
It will be interesting to see whether in the coming months it will be singing from the same hym book as Errol McCleod and its friends in labour. People should be reminded that former radical trade unionist George Weekes was deemed persona non grata when he became a minister in the National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR) Government which cut public service salaries and took away cost of living allowances.
While the economic conditions may not be identical, the current situation, particularly, in light of an uncertain international economic dispensation, demands fiscal restraint on the part of Government and the new administration may be forced to cut back on Government spending, especially on prestige projects and unproductive make-work endeavours such as CEPEP and URP.
Kamla will be inheriting the multi-billion burden of the failed C.L. Financial empire, a heavy debt portfolio and falling revenues.
Aprat from this week’s floods if not because of it food prices are due to rise and compensation will have to be paid for flood damage.
Oh lord! Not a moment to, properly, celebrate victory.