By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
December 28, 2024

Three recent events cemented in my mind that the poor and the not-so-poor will suffer much more over the next five years than they do today if the present Government is not changed.

The PNM must move aside to allow us to inhale a new breath of freedom, experience greater competence in running the country’s affairs, and to assure us that we can expect a more normal life in the future.

I refer to the horrible death of Lisa Morris-Julian whose life (literally the ability of her and her children to breathe life-giving air) was cut short because of the incompetence of a government that has not developed an efficient apparatus to save our people’s lives. Morris-Julian died because of the absence of available fire trucks and a reliable flow of water, the figurative “breath of life”, in the third largest borough on the island.

Not content with denying citizens an available supply of life-giving water, the Government was prepared to deny senior citizens, the poorest of the poor, the monetary means to sustain and provide for their physical existence.

The Government also sought to deny senior citizens their pensions ($3,000 per month) if their savings exceeded $25,000. This action suggested that a senior citizen should exist in dire poverty before she receives any benefits from a government she elected to secure and preserve her well-being.

AG Reginald Armour revealed that a Cabinet Note on this matter was sent to the Cabinet in March 2023. It was referred to the Finance and General Purposes Committee and thereafter to the Legislative Review Committee for discussion. The bill went back to Cabinet on November 21, 2024; Minister Cox laid it in Parliament on December 9, but no one noticed the insertion of clause “g” that stiffed senior citizens.

Neither Armour nor the Leader of Our Grief was in the country when this bill was discussed; neither of them read it. The Leader, without a scintilla of contrition, offered the shameless excuse: “All of that was news to me because the first note that went to the Cabinet, I didn’t see it and I wasn’t in the country at the time. I went to Parliament on Friday, it was laid but I didn’t see the note.” (Express, December 19.)

Here was a piece of legislation in which thousands of citizens were about to lose the pensions upon which their existence depended because the two highest officials of the land and the minister responsible for steering the bill through the House had not seen or heard of clause “g”, comprising five words: “has savings not exceeding $25,000”. The AG said a civil servant inserted the clause without their knowledge.

Think of the irony of the situation. It took a woman who they called “drunkard”, incompetent”, “can’t trust her to run the next government” to rescue our senior citizens from the squalor of falling into deeper poverty than they are now.

Keep in mind that the Leader of Our Grief, who is guaranteed to receive $89,000 per month for the rest of his life, had no problem denying the citizens with the least means $3,000 per month if they have savings of more than $25,000.

He defended his callousness thus: “One qualification that is looked at is the income and not the savings. The bill had required that citizens must have savings of no more than $25,000 to be eligible for Senior Citizens’ Pension. If your income is below a certain level, then you qualify. And somewhere along the line, somebody [an anonymous somebody] didn’t understand that after the Cabinet took a decision.”

One wonders what decision the Cabinet took and when did this anonymous person insert this disturbing clause. I also wonder if it is polite to ask the Leader of Our Grief how much money he has in savings or perhaps how much savings should prevent him from receiving the $89,000 pension he will receive when he leaves his present office.

On Christmas Day, one of the holiest of all days in our country, three people were gunned down. At the end of the year the number of people murdered will be closer to 620 people. Louis Lee Sing suggests: “We are neither safe within our homes or out of them.” More than 4,000 people have been murdered since the PNM took power in 2015.

We should rid ourselves of this corruptible formation called the PNM during the next election. It is criminal to let them loose upon the population for another five years. A quiet period to reassess its values may be helpful to them. PNM should leave us alone if only for decency’s sake. I cannot think of a better gift to the nation.

—Prof Cudjoe’s e-mail address is scudjoe@wellesley.edu. He can be reached @ProfessorCudjoe.