Gopeesingh: The failed Rowley-led PNM has now turned against the country’s students
The PNM Government has now turned its notoriety for public mischief to innocent students, who are Trinidad and Tobago’s future leaders.
The brazen and unfounded allegations made by no fewer than three government ministers about the costs of constructing public schools is a new low, even by the PNM’s abysmally miserable standards.
First, Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley publicly disputed that the Kamla Persad-Bissessar administration constructed 106 schools and Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) centres, even though the evidence is obvious all across the country.
When I properly detailed all the schools, in and out of Parliament, three ministers – with seemingly nothing else to do – assembled like aimless wayward to make wild and baseless claims.
This is typical of the government’s spite and ceaseless partisan politicking, which it has now directed against the students who are benefiting from the provision of the school facilities.
The government ministers publicly groused about having to spend taxpayers’ dollars to outfit and maintain the modern schools.
They creatively ignored that fact that amenities are routinely provided to schools each year, and grumbled about having to deliver the requisite services and undertake upgrades for the benefit of students.
The ministers complained about the need for provide goods and services for the welfare of the next generation of leaders in the public and private sectors.
While any other modern society would have welcomed the construction of such a record number of schools, the PNM laboriously nitpicked about having to sustain and enhance the facilities.
This is most regrettable, but not surprising, in light of the Rowley regime’s absence of vision and strategic planning.
In sharp contrast, the Kamla Persad-Bissessar Administration created a holistic plan to make Trinidad and Tobago a modern, knowledge-based and internationally competitive nation.
The Persad-Bissessar Government delivered progressive and imaginative governance, with the country’s students as an essential cornerstone.
For its part, the near-sighted PNM Government has chronically failed to deliver to the prime human resources and, instead, is a serial and bitter complainer.
The Rowley Administration’s default position is always to blame the previous Government, whose track record of performance is unmatched.
While the government has vigorously sought to undermine the historic construction of 106 schools, it is, almost at the end of its term in office, promising the construction of 27 facilities.
With the government’s appalling performance, those promised schools are likely to fall to a similar fate as all the other PNM manifesto promises.
The patent collapse in the construction of schools compounds the impact of the failure to deliver computer laptops, cutbacks in textbooks, decline in the transport and Schools Feeding programme, and other vital initiatives.
The palpable failure in the education sector symbolises a government without the required skills, vision and leadership that is urgently needed in Trinidad and Tobago.