Last week Tuesday’s deliberate decision by Local Government Minister Rennie Dumas is a perfect example of what I have been saying for quite a long time. That the biggest problem facing this country is indiscipline—from top to bottom—and from that flows all our other serious dilemmas, challenges and grievous issues.

For those who came in late, here is what has gotten my bake and channa.

On that day, Minister Dumas had the important task of piloting for debate in the Upper House the Local Government Validation Bill.

The measure deals with a report from the Elections and Boundaries Commission relative to holding local government elections.

But seven minutes into the sitting, Leader of Government Business in the Senate, Dr Lenny Saith, told surprised legislators that the sitting could not proceed because of the absence of Minister Dumas.

And what was the reason for his absence?

The senator stayed in Tobago to attend a “community function,” which was in fact the tail end of the Easter celebrations in the sister island.

When contacted, the senator told a reporter that as a Cabinet member he had to walk a tight rope between attending community and national functions.

He added:

“People at the extremities complain that they don’t see us enough and if one does not attend functions one is vilified with the people saying ‘now he is in Cabinet and the Parliament he has no time for us.’”

That statement to me was self-serving in that Dumas is not an elected member of Parliament. So the excuse of being with “his” people does not hold water. Unless he knows something that we don’t know.

Maybe he had to get the goats out of the pen to take part in the community-oriented goat race and make sure they were fit and proper to run the gruelling races.

Or he had to catch the crabs and train them for their sprint events.

And of course Dumas could not trust his URP and Cepep people in the sister island to clean up the place after the big bash so he had to stay back and ensure they got the job done properly. Or is it he is being groomed to fight a seat in Tobago in the next general election?

I know that Mr Dumas’ heart is in the right place but there is a right way and a wrong way to do things.

I refuse to believe that Minister Saith was not aware that his Cabinet colleague would not have been in Trinidad in time for the debate. If so, he too stands guilty of wasting people’s time.

Who is now going to pay for the catered snacks that must be served at every sitting of the legislature? We the taxpayers, of course.

What a waste of time and funds. Just because a government minister decided to give priority to feteing over urgent matters of the State.

How was the national good served by Dumas gallivanting in Tobago?

I think he has been disrespectful to the country and his office by the cavalier manner in which he behaved in this instance.

And as I said, it is a kind of indiscipline that pervades the entire society where no one is held accountable for their erring ways.

Do you think Prime Minister Patrick Manning would reprimand his Cabinet colleague for the disrespect showed?

I doubt it because our self-confessed dear second father of the nation is too busy chasing mega construction projects of dubious down-the-road value.

This kind of indiscipline was also displayed last week by the top executive management of the National Energy Corporation at a sitting of the Joint Select Committee of Parliament to look into matters relative to the controversial smelter plants in south Trinidad.

Citizens are in great doubts over many aspects of these projects, most of all the possible health hazards posed by these ventures.

This caring government has not come completely clean on all the ramifications involved in the plants. We don’t know exactly what is in the contract and no one in the administration seems willing to fill us in on these important facts so we can make an informed decision on whether we should welcome the venture with the kind of fervour Alcoa wants us to.

So, like naughty schoolboys, the NEC executives neglected to do the decent thing and inform the Mary King committee in advance that their chairman Keith Awong could not make the session.

It was only half hour after the meeting began that Mrs King received a fax—of all things—saying that the great Awong could not be present. As if to say if the minister could blank a sitting of the Parliament who is me.

Is that the kind of efficiency and discipline taxpayers are paying these fat cats to exhibit?

Minister Dumas owes the nation an apology for his depressing lack of good judgment.