Politics of Distraction

Today Trinidad and Tobago woke up to the reality that maybe, just maybe, our small but thriving economy may be in for some turbulence amidst the global financial crisis. The Central Bank, together with Government, announced its move to intervene in the operations of CL Financial Group, particularly its financial services companies, as a preemptive measure protecting deposit holders and citizens at large from what appears to be trouble in the company’s financial system.

A few years back the Group branded itself as a financial “superpower”. Now with the world witnessing superpowers like the United States and the European Union bending their knees from the pressures of an economic meltdown, it seems like dramatic irony that the region’s own superpower is buckling under the weight of similar pressures.

What worries me most is not the fact that Trinis continue to bury their heads deeper in the proverbial sand with Carnival-mania, neither the fact that one of the strongest economies in the Caribbean region attributes close to one quarter of its GDP to the commercial activities of a single corporate group. What I see that worries me is the workings and the mechanics of something far more serious threatening our young democracy. I see beyond the glare of our dailies’ headlines and those in the coming days that spell a natural proliferation of a worldwide phenomenon. In the coming days, little will be heard of the two-day-old headlines about blatant impropriety in the tendering process at a local company under the stewardship of a government ministry or of its CEO Calder Hart.

It is interesting that only days after “robust” questioning from a member of the Commission of Inquiry into the construction sector, and calls for that member to recuse himself, that a new ‘bacchanal’ has found itself on the radar. It is clear that this new news item has hastily put to bed public discussion on the UDECOTT issue given its wider implication on the national agenda, one in which the public is more widely vested. I can’t help but consider how, after weeks of discussions between Central Bank, the Government and CL Financial, they should choose the end of such a week to disclose such a major move.

The nine day wonder in Trinidad is over. Gone are those days. Today the life span of the vox populi was cut short by the politics of distraction. To put it in Carnival terms, it is like getting into a real good groove at a soca fete only to be interrupted when the DJ suddenly changes the pace with one of those ‘jump and wave’ numbers. Talk about distraction!