The Editor Amandala,
Sir,
I have noted before, but it bears repeating: The 2003 government came into port on false promises. The architects, H. Said Musa and H. Ralph Fonseca, who controlled the government’s finances, KNEW that they were not about to (indeed could not) build the houses they promised, create the jobs they promised, give the juicy raise of pay they promised to public servants/teachers, because they had to take us into austerity, haad time…euphemistically called restructuring.
It is my opinion, when I saw the Prime Minister making one of his victory speeches, that he was surprised the people had returned his party in Ought 3…or at least the margin of victory. To him there might have been a little let down, you know, disappointment in us for not seeing through the sham. I bet he did not factor in the lingering anger…the bitterness in the people’s mouth left there after a crass banner was strung across the Pallotti overpass in Belize City by the Reds in ‘98…saying MEK DEM WAIT.
We aren’t fools. Oh yes, we all knew who the target was, but that did not give anyone license to trample our rights. Every five years (at least) politicians come to us, and we demand our respect. Any Red Faithful who feel they can justify their party’s transgression by pointing out Blue excesses of the same kind are wasting their time. For a reason I will not state here, the people are (have been) “more” tolerant of Blue mischief and wickedness.
Coming back to promises, for all their wildness in 1993, with promises of farmland for city people, and free education, the UDP brain trust believed they were making sense. Ditto the 1998 PUP. But the 2003 Blue is an entirely different story. Those outside the inner circle, did not know, could not see the bottom line, because they were shielded from it. And because they were excited, absorbed by what was going on in their immediate turf. But the two leaders who controlled the purse strings, and the entire Finance arm of government, KNEW that the Blue was making promises they could never keep.
But, some of us who were far from the fray, and had read our A-B-C’s of Economics, knew that manifesto nah goh work. The biggest exercise of ’98-‘03, the housing projects, was the biggest squander of public resources in our history. A noble goal, yes, but as the real engineer put it, fu staat, you better make your own cement! What the housing projects amounted to was a massive transfer of capital into the hands of a few. And people living in well-deserved houses they couldn’t pay for, because the few, instead of plowing back the money, salted it…leaving us high and dry.
I had hoped that exposure would have made the Blue humble. When you commit fraud, and get caught, you are supposed to wear sackcloth, and go about the business of making amends. Properly, we should be discussing the reforms necessary to improve our governance, and when we have consensus, early elections.
Since I am about repeating myself today, I will say again that in my books the most important reform is the four-year term. After thinking about it some, I will add that the second most important reform is limiting the size of the Cabinet.
There is a third matter, of monumental importance: the electoral process. There are those who say that our leaders reflect who we are, that we get the leaders we deserve. But that is a falsehood. The truth is that we get the best leaders our electoral system can produce. On this last position, Mr. Gaspar Martinez, one of the members of the pre-‘98 reform movement, pointed out to me some time ago that when we go to the polls for general elections our leaders have already been chosen – at party conventions. But the most educated Belizeans, the public servants/teachers, do not participate in the party convention process.
(Signed) Colin