COMMENTARY

Commentary: Happy Holidays Published on Monday, December 28, 2009 Email To Friend    Print Version By David Tapfer Once again, we have reached an important time of the year as we celebrate the birth of Jesus. Christmas comes on the eve of the New Year, providing a season of renewed hope. David Tapfer is a retired, US-born engineer and management executive. He is married to Yvette Robinson, a TCIslander born in Middle Caicos and raised in North Caicos. They have a home in Conch Bar, Middle Caicos. He is also the chairman of the Middle Caicos Branch of the opposition Peoples Democratic Movement. Seniors find that, as years accumulate, time seems to fly by faster. Starting in late 2007, however, things sure slowed down in the TCI. Anticipation and play out of the Commission of Inquiry. The long wait for the interim and final reports, the dissolution of parliament. Resignation of the first premier and the impotent administration of number two were only distractions. We continue our long drawn out wait for the possibility of prosecutions and recoveries. Former government ministers are hiding out, possibly fomenting defence plans. In six months, our Governor will complete his first 24-month term. The FCO has changed hands under the Labour government three times since HE Wetherell was selected. The entire British government may change to Conservative in May. Margaret Thatcher was a Conservative. In 1979, her manifesto indicated reasons Great Britain had declined, with unemployment, stagnated growth and high inflation caused by high taxation and regulation of business. Sound familiar? Renewal. Can we recover from the last six years? Only if we acknowledge our mistakes and take stock of our assets and work a plan. I hear, watch and read many opposing views. There are certain givens. Smaller efficient and principled government is better than a large staff of unmotivated position holders. Can TC Islanders find employment in the private sector? Answer: of course. Those jobs range from unskilled to management level. Education. From personal firsthand experience, I can report TCI students coming from primary to graduate level find their academic challenges in the USA a cakewalk. We do need more schools. Is our political and governmental system adequate? We had a governor who did not govern, an AG who does not prosecute crime, a finance department that lost $45 million in bills and a cabinet who spent their time in a gambling house. You cannot blame the system. We knew who the players were before we elected them; shame on us. Was the other party a better choice? Ask yourself: Had we chosen them would Britain be here? We did NOT however pick the Governor, the AG or the FCO chiefs. Our mother country did. Without due consideration, a British Lord consulted and approved the changed constitution our first Premier wanted. A distracted British judge decertified the election of 2003 and set the events of the last six years in motion. We depended on Britain to set the limits and look at what they were signing and do their jobs. In my personal view they let us down. Some here may not believe this, but the British do. The British know they had the responsibility for oversight and therefore are only now enforcing it in the most drastic way possible: take over. Sensible people all know prevention is better than the surgery we are encountering right now. It’s clear the British had responsibilities, but are they accountable? From a broken down, cheapy causeway, to unfinished projects, massive loans, commercial debt unpaid and the sellout of acres of Crown land, no one was watching or paying attention to the alarms that were sounded loud and clear. Now projects requiring more taxation from a suffering public, including revised health and expanded airport are approved. Will Britain who always had direct responsibility for police and the AG solve the crime problem? Hold on…. here comes 2010.   Reads : 338 Back... Comments: No comments on this topic yet. Be the first one to submit a comment. Back... Send us your comments!   Send us your comments on this article for publication in our Readers' Forum or as a Letter to the Editor. All fields are required and in the interest of openness and transparency we will no longer accept anonymous submissions. We therefore request that all submissions include a name for publication, regardless of content. We will in special circumstances protect a writer's identity only after we have established good cause for anonymity, otherwise we will not be able to publish the submission. For your contribution to reach us, you must (a) provide a valid e-mail address and (b) click on the validation link that will be sent to the e-mail address you provide.  If the address is not valid or you don't click on the validation link, it will be a waste of your time typing your submission because we will never see it! Your Name: Your Email: (Validation required) Comments: Enter Validation Code *