By Raffique Shah
February 21, 2022

I am convinced that Trinidad and Tobago is the most corrupt country in the world. There is hardly a person who has not witnessed “wid mih own eyes”, as Trinis would say, or otherwise gained knowledge of, at least one act of corruption in his lifetime, and likelier several such illegal transactions. He or she will have said nothing about it by way of reporting the illegal act to anyone with the authority to act on it.

Closer to the sad truth is that there is almost a national conspiracy to stay silent… and life in this cussed country moves on.

It’s just another day in paradise, as indeed it might be in most countries in the world. Corruption has become so commonplace that it’s tacitly declared endemic, even if it rises to epidemic proportions, gnawing away at the soul of the nation, rendering all of us complicit in what is grand larceny, theft of public funds by one means or other.

So to suggest that mere knowledge of corrupt practices is excusable, even acceptable, that to palm off an extra one-hundred-dollar bill to someone at the notorious Licensing Department of the Ministry of Transport, be he a tout who “earns a living” that way, or a “respectable” senior officer who accelerates the service you pay for, is “no big t’ing”, admits that the late PNM minister, Desmond Cartey, was merely affirming an article of faith in T&T politics, when he blurted out on the campaign trail, “All ah we t’ief!”

I deliberately used “T&T” politics, not PNM politics, because the UNC, when it savoured a first taste of power in the said 1986 election, and later in 1995, 2000, and together with other like-minded politicians in the People’s Partnership in 2010, proved to be a more rapacious gang of thieves than the notorious John O’Halloran, Boysie Prevatt et al among frontline PNM bandits.

Viewed from these perspectives, Trinis and Tobagonians—yes, these are all-inclusive parties—see their politics past and future tied with what is there now, nothing new, nothing clean. Next weekend, as we sip a taste of Carnival, we sing out loudly, “All ah we is one t’iefing family…!”

You see, I have been taxing my brain trying to come up with some idea, regulations, instruments, measures—call them what you will—that I can leave behind as legacies of a would-be patriot who at least tried to make a difference, to influence his fellow-citizens to come together to rid us of the biggest obstacle to progress, the culture of corruption that has stripped us of 40 or 50 per cent, maybe more, of GDP annually, siphoning the same to satiate the greed of the few at the expense of the needs of the many, then I can make my exit to the hereafter thinking I have achieved something.

But I feel no closer to such lofty goal today than I did 50 years ago when I offered myself for public office, back then as a humble trade unionist who sought to right the wrongs inflicted on sugar cane farmers by the plantation and industry owners and controllers, as well as the government of the day.

Winston Leonard and I, persuaded by James Millette, Ronald Holassie and a small group of farmers, threw caution to the wind and plunged into a struggle about which we knew little. To everyone’s shock and surprise, including ours, meetings grew from small groups of ten, 20, to a few hundred, and before long, we topped the 1,000 mark. We ignited the sugar-belt in late 1973 before the people there knew who Basdeo Panday was.

When we were still struggling with hundreds, one evening, an older farmer from what was known as The Valley Line (Barrackpore), asked if he could have a private word with me. He told me he had followed my meetings, and he was impressed with what Leonard and I were promoting. For far too long, many people had taken the farmers for a ride and pocketed money deducted by law from their payment for cane they supplied to the manufacturers.

He put his hand on my shoulder and said, almost pleading, “Betah {son}, I see you being successful. We will help you to become our leader but I ask one thing of you.”

To my great shock, he uttered, “When you win {as leader of their union}, take for yourself but leave something good for the farmers.” I stood in shock for seconds, mumbled something akin to a promise and walked away thinking: this man and maybe all of them expect me to steal their money. I wasn’t in the struggle for personal gain, but to enhance their lives. I held fast to my ideals throughout and remain untainted to this day.

If only we can have a similar chorus from those in politics, and leaders in general.