SO AGAIN the mainstream Press is eating out of Donville Inniss’ hands. It appears that he has been providing them with tidbits to position him as separate from, and now a victim of, the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of his Government.
The Press has a tremendous responsibility to the people; to provide them with actual news, while highlighting the issues that they should be concerned with within society. Unfortunately, sometimes the Press is culpable in helping to create leaders out of individuals less than suitable to lead, Donald Trump being a more recent example.
It is obvious to those discerning that Inniss seeks to use the Press to aid him towards leadership of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP).
His present pothole dilemma appears to be part of an ongoing campaign to convince the majority of Barbadians that he, Inniss, stands apart from his failing Government. It is so obvious that it begs the question: how is it that the press just happened to be in the same locale as the minister, as his car unceremoniously dropped into a pothole, the day after his team leader referred to the potholes as “transitory inconveniences” in another one of his out-of-touch responses to the issues facing the country?
I think it is safe to assume that in reality, Inniss presented himself as just as affected as the ordinary man. The problem is that in this situation, he is not an ordinary man. He is an elected MP, and we rightfully assume that this places him in a position to make recommendations to the Prime Minister, the minister responsible for the roads, or the minister with responsibility for the dispersion of funds to remedy road repairs.
The point that I am making here is that from the common man’s reality, there is no such access and therefore no opportunity to effect change at that level. The minister should be consulting his team, instead of seeking to use a pothole to save his own political life.
Inniss remains part and parcel of the DLP, and has stood with them on every single vote for the implementation of every single policy that has negatively affected the Barbadian public.
There is no record of him emphatically standing in opposition to the implementation of University of the West Indies fees, or against the rise in the cost of road tax, or against the effective removal of travel and entertainment allowances, or the removal of the allowance on expenditure for home maintenance, or the supposed temporary increase in VAT, or against the Cahill attempt, the Flow/LIME merger, the Cost-U-Less or Sandals concessions, or against the myriad of other decisions taken by the DLP Government.
His latest [episode] seeks to prove that even he is affected by the inaction of his Government. “Even me!” Yes, but not in the same way that it affects the rest of the nation.
His cry is that he has had to pay some $3 000 to fix a wheel damaged by a pothole. Most of us have never even driven a vehicle in a value range to warrant such a cost for a wheel repair or replacement.
And were we to incur such a cost, we would without a doubt be subjected to the unreliable and capricious bus service until such time as we could raise funds for repairs. To be honest, $3 000 is representative of the total value of many vehicles owned by people in neighbourhoods that Inniss represents.
You have succeeded in presenting to us a divided DLP.
– DEBRA IFILL
