AZP News Assignments Editor Sue-Ann Wayow was at the Caroni Bird Sanctuary and Bamboo No.2 on Tuesday, November 29, 2022, to see the effects of flooding after a low-level trough brought unprecedented rain over Trinidad and Tobago.
By Dennise Demming
“WHAT the flood is wrong with our Prime Minister’s brain?” is the question a friend asked me recently.
Of course, I don’t know, but a review of some of his responses in the recent Ria Taitt interview raises a concern about references made to “Ted Cruz”, “Maduro” and “Flood Politics”.
What the “flood” does “Maduro” and “Ted Cruz” have to do with the prime minister being functionally absent in supporting any of the 100,000 citizens who suffered from the flooding?
Texas Senator Ted Cruz (renamed Fled Cruz) was fiercely criticised on social media when he left Houston with his children to get away from his freezing home caused by an electrical failure that left hundreds of homes bitterly cold during winter.
Nicolás Maduro Moros is the contentious president of Venezuela. After the elections in 2018, the word “usurper” of authority was used by the Supreme Tribunal of Justice in Venezuela to describe the National Assembly he leads.
About 320,000 people voted for the PNM in 2015 and 2020 and all you can say as prime minister is: “Not me and flood politics … I not in dat.”
In Keithspeak this might well be interpreted, “I have put in all the infrastructure and instructed my four ministers to do what is necessary, so I am off to the golf course where I often spend a lot of my time.”
On November 26, 2022, the OCHA website (the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) reported that as a results of floods “100,000 people have been affected with 15,000 in need of support which represents approximately 5,100 households in five key municipalities in Trinidad and Tobago.”
The following is the list of affected areas:
Area affected
Number of households
Tunapuna/Piarco Regional Corporation
2,700
El Carmen, St Helena, Madras Road
1,200
Kelly Village
300
Caroni
200
Real Spring, Valsayn South
200
Bamboo #2 and #3
800
San Juan/Laventille Regional Corporation
200
Sangre Grande Regional Corporation
1,000
Mayaro/Rio Claro Regional Corporation
500
Penal/Debe Regional Corporation
700
Despite this data, our prime minister is locked into the view that showing up for flood victims is using flood politics to gain a photo opportunity. Or is it that he is so disconnected that he can comfortably say “flood you” to 100,000 flood-affected citizens?
Several years ago, Ataklan sang Flood on de Main Road as a white lie to excuse his tardiness of arriving late to meet his girlfriend. Today that is no longer a lie, it is the reality we all live in. In the slightest rain, there is “flood on the main road” in every part of our country.
Men who have been fathers, husbands, and grandfathers, experience family members needing to feel their presence.
Well, this is exactly what the sufferers, flood victims, and one hundred thousand voters needed, to feel the presence of our leader. When the empathy part of your humanity has shut down it is time for deep reflection and re-work. Make the right choice!
Dennise Demming is passionate about changing her country and finds inspiration interacting with creative, restless people. As a mental health counsellor and communications practitioner, she is committed to making a difference wherever she lands. She believes that effective communication is the vehicle to release our creative energies for our mutual benefit. She earned a Master’s Degree in Couples and Family Counselling from Walden University, an MBA, and a B.Sc. in Political Science & Public Administration from The University of the West Indies, St Augustine.
Flood Politics is ‘Keithspeak’
AZP News Assignments Editor Sue-Ann Wayow was at the Caroni Bird Sanctuary and Bamboo No.2 on Tuesday, November 29, 2022, to see the effects of flooding after a low-level trough brought unprecedented rain over Trinidad and Tobago.
“WHAT the flood is wrong with our Prime Minister’s brain?” is the question a friend asked me recently.
Of course, I don’t know, but a review of some of his responses in the recent Ria Taitt interview raises a concern about references made to “Ted Cruz”, “Maduro” and “Flood Politics”.
What the “flood” does “Maduro” and “Ted Cruz” have to do with the prime minister being functionally absent in supporting any of the 100,000 citizens who suffered from the flooding?
Texas Senator Ted Cruz (renamed Fled Cruz) was fiercely criticised on social media when he left Houston with his children to get away from his freezing home caused by an electrical failure that left hundreds of homes bitterly cold during winter.
Nicolás Maduro Moros is the contentious president of Venezuela. After the elections in 2018, the word “usurper” of authority was used by the Supreme Tribunal of Justice in Venezuela to describe the National Assembly he leads.
About 320,000 people voted for the PNM in 2015 and 2020 and all you can say as prime minister is: “Not me and flood politics … I not in dat.”
In Keithspeak this might well be interpreted, “I have put in all the infrastructure and instructed my four ministers to do what is necessary, so I am off to the golf course where I often spend a lot of my time.”
On November 26, 2022, the OCHA website (the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) reported that as a results of floods “100,000 people have been affected with 15,000 in need of support which represents approximately 5,100 households in five key municipalities in Trinidad and Tobago.”
The following is the list of affected areas:
Area affected
Number of households
Tunapuna/Piarco Regional Corporation
2,700
El Carmen, St Helena, Madras Road
1,200
Kelly Village
300
Caroni
200
Real Spring, Valsayn South
200
Bamboo #2 and #3
800
San Juan/Laventille Regional Corporation
200
Sangre Grande Regional Corporation
1,000
Mayaro/Rio Claro Regional Corporation
500
Penal/Debe Regional Corporation
700
Despite this data, our prime minister is locked into the view that showing up for flood victims is using flood politics to gain a photo opportunity. Or is it that he is so disconnected that he can comfortably say “flood you” to 100,000 flood-affected citizens?
Several years ago, Ataklan sang Flood on de Main Road as a white lie to excuse his tardiness of arriving late to meet his girlfriend. Today that is no longer a lie, it is the reality we all live in. In the slightest rain, there is “flood on the main road” in every part of our country.
Men who have been fathers, husbands, and grandfathers, experience family members needing to feel their presence.
Well, this is exactly what the sufferers, flood victims, and one hundred thousand voters needed, to feel the presence of our leader. When the empathy part of your humanity has shut down it is time for deep reflection and re-work. Make the right choice!
Dennise Demming is passionate about changing her country and finds inspiration interacting with creative, restless people. As a mental health counsellor and communications practitioner, she is committed to making a difference wherever she lands. She believes that effective communication is the vehicle to release our creative energies for our mutual benefit. She earned a Master’s Degree in Couples and Family Counselling from Walden University, an MBA, and a B.Sc. in Political Science & Public Administration from The University of the West Indies, St Augustine.