Perhaps It Is Reuben T Meade Who Should Just "Shut Up"

Perhaps It Is Reuben T Meade Who Should Just "Shut Up"
Author

ZJB Listener

Release Date

Saturday, February 7, 2015

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I turned on my radio to ZJB this evening and heard an angry voice saying; “Shut Up! … Just Shut Up!”

"What on earth is going on here?" I thought.

Then I realized that it was Mr Reuben Meade, Leader of the Opposition, being his usual insulting and uncouth self. He was at the time berating the local DFID representative, Martin Dawson; claiming that Mr Dawson did not know what he was talking about and that documentation was there to support the Hospital Project and the drilling of the 3rd well for Geothermal development on Montserrat etc. etc.

Yes Reuben Meade was back with the same broken record from 3 weeks ago. You see, Reuben is intent that his side of the story of what truly happened when he was in power drowns out the truth of what in fact did happen. He does not want the Montserrat public and the Diaspora to know the truth of how he dealt Montserrat a serious blow in his handling of the country's development concerns, why today, and immediately after a new government came in, DFID got heavy and very strict with handling of monies and projects. Any smart and thinking person can figure it out.

Mr Meade gave an explanation that might sound plausible to many people; until he claimed that there was approval of a business case for the ‘new build’ Hospital.

Reuben Meade sounded very much like Trinidad's other political joker, Jack Warner, as he promised several times now to produce the documentation to support his claim. Now, interesting thing is that Reuben has been known to read private emails out in public; so why did he not just read the relevant section of the document he claims to have that gives him approval for a new build hospital?

Reuben has been known to give classified documents to ‘Labour Speaks’, so why hasn’t he given that one to Hylroy the Chief of Bloviating, to read on his program and place emphasis in all the wrong places?

Instead, Meade promised to give the documents to guess who? Jermaine Wade - a non-entity politically - to publish on the much heralded Opposition Website. But wait…; isn’t there an MCAP party website at www.mcap.ms?

Sure there is, but Wade says the new site will be called www.opposition.ms. Why ditch the established brand. LOL, it seems as though Jermaine Wade is resigned to being Opposition for life; I wonder if he has ever heard of self-fulfilling prophecy.

The new Opposition website is actually live already and Wade has ditched the MCAP party logo and traditional yellow color and opted instead for a Jack Warner style green branding; OMG!. It seems as though Wade is prematurely executing his party takeover plan, which happens to be the worse kept secret in Montserrat. Should we warn him that Reuben Meade is not as forgiving as Romeo? Catch the website quick, before Jermaine remedies his faux pas.

But Reuben T Meade needs to put up or shut up! Produce the documents that says you Reuben, was given approval for a 'new build' hospital to the Montserrat public, and end this charade you have going on. You seem Reuben to take Montserratians for a joke with your continual divisive politics. Park the bitterness at your loss of power, because you come over so bitter and angry. Park the game playing, and park using Wade and having the poor lad look silly with his clear lack of skill to host such a programme. Park it all Reuben, and produce the documents you have that verifies a new build hospital was approved. You said it and keep saying it, so put up or shut up Reuben. Publish the documents you claim you have.

Now as usual, two MCAP stalwarts called in with their staged questions and lamentations. If things weren’t in fact so serious, I would have laughed at the contractor who called in and painted such a grim picture of Salem and the country. This is a man who denied the realities that people were telling him and his party about prior to the election. Now that godfather Reuben is no longer in power to farm out petty contracts to him; he is seeing the plight that other people were living long before now.

Then the lady called in to lament the fact that nothing is happening for the business people at the market. I was taught to respect my elders, or I would have borrowed Reuben’s words and told the lady to “shut up!” Why? Because the businesses at the market were suffering all the time under the MCAP administration. They were operating off their startup capital and never really prospering. I have never gone into an establishment at the market building, other than the restaurant, and met two other people shopping at the same time. Things were hard all along madam; that is why your party was sent packing. Don’t you get it yet! The new government has a hard task to try to rectify the failing economy, but for goodness sake, stop pretending that this is something new. MCAP stood by in denial while the economy was in decline, and we are all now experiencing the consequences of that neglect.

People leaving they say. NEWSFLASH! People were always leaving. And common sense tells me that nobody just up and leave at the drop of a hat. They must have been suffering for a long time or planning to move for other reasons for a while.

It was always the people’s fault for living above their means we were told repeatedly by the MCAP talking heads. Shut up they told us... Nobody poor… look they buying cell phones, look they wearing fancy clothes. MCAP Ministers were even begrudging people for what they had in their shopping basket. It was a naïve outlook on the society and the economy. At least, now Reuben is acknowledging that the problems are real. The sad truth is that it was always real when they chose to ignore the signs and symptoms and made light of people’s degree of ‘fedupness’.

As I reflect on Reuben's repeated admonishments to Martin Dawson; it is becoming clearer and clearer to me that the failures now are a direct result of the style of government that was in operation under MCAP.

The senior civil servants were largely excluded from the projects, and as a result there is now a lack of continuity. The fact of the matter is that the Geothermal Project and the Port Project, while they fall under the MCWL, were not being run out of that department. Recall that there was even a move to make the Public Works Department redundant under MCAP.

The Hospital project was not being run out of the Ministry of Health under MCAP

The Tourism project was farmed out to MDC simply to make sure they had more millions to spend outside of proper government controls, under MCAP.

The truth is that the permanency of the service was broken by the past government relegating the Permanent Secretaries, and in some cases even Ministers to spectator positions. Just ask Colin Riley about the hospital project, or Charles about the Road Project, under MCAP.

So now that the super civil servants have been booted out of office, or gone on to other jobs; the proper workflows and departmental responsibilities that used to work prior to the MCAP experiment have to be restored. It is taking a while longer than expected, no doubt about that; but some people don’t seem to realize that they are once again free to be professionals. A role that Reuben relegated them from because he wanted to be in control of everything. I think the man may have a hidden case of OCD.

I think it is Reuben T Meade, the man responsible for the broken system we now have, and the inevitable increased oversight by DFID, who should now shut up and take a back seat for the good of the country. You are seeking to cover up your mismanagement Reuben, but you will not escape your tactic of seeking to once again mislead the people, without the people knowing the truth of how you damaged this country under false pretences.

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