Are we seeing a rising tide of corruption scandals, or an increase in the level of public awareness and demands for transparency? Marla Dukharan and Afra Raymond discuss:
- The latest Corruption Perception Index – as a region how did we fare?
- Trinidad and Tobago – The overall trend is not improving, but is anything being done to address this?
- Petrojam, Petrotrin fake oil, Sandals – a look at the recent corruption scandals.
- Q&A with the audience
AfraRaymond.net 
Thank you for all your work. I respect it greatly.
The Probable Disgorgement of Deceitful Pranksters 21st March 2019
Afra Raymond and Marla Dukharan offer sixty minutes of hope for this sinking ship of state, scuttled by scummy scavengers at several stages. The webinar’s theme was based on Trinidad’s position on the latest Corruption Perception Index. Referencing Rwanda as a beacon and citing Guyana’s SARA, State Assets Recovery Agency and Grenada’s Capital Bank International boss, Finton De Bourg as being exemplary, we happily learn that our children have joined the online and offline battle to condemn and incarcerate the doers and to deracinate their plunder from the darkness of secrecy into the light of public scrutiny.
Corruption is inherent in capitalism and perceptions do not scare those who gain from legalised but unscrupulous practices here and elsewhere. Afra exposed the absurd cost incurred by the state of almost five billion dollars to recover twenty-five odd billion dollars from still many anonymous Clico investors as, “A Matter of Interest.” The discussion also touched on the Sandals fiasco, lamenting the fact of the Clico fraud that no one is charged and no funds have been repaid to the state.
Probability and perception are speculative abstracts that, like religion, promise redemption. Christ’s dying for our sins does that too. We have become masters of deceit, doctors of exploitation and divine at hypocrisy. Gandhi is cited as opposing his peers (page 158, The Wit and Wisdom of Gandhi) who claim that India will gain USA’s wealth but avoid its immoral methods. Our economic prophets; Lloyd Best, Clive Thomas, George Beckford and Norman Girvan among others; have been praised and ignored, like Christ. We pay only lip service to our steelbands and the Arts while we spend millions on economic hit-men and toxic foreign products. It is often cheaper to fly to California than to Jamaica and although the former is a known, notorious, drug haven, the latter is demonised for its ganja culture. Yet the US has for decades deployed its military forces to defend Afghanistan’s poppy fields against intruders to secure the billion-dollar heroin trade it pretends to be fighting against.
See: https://www.globalresearch.ca/drug-war-american-troops-are-protecting-afghan-opium-u-s-occupation-leads-to-all-time-high-heroin-production/5358053
Ivan Van Sertima, NJAC and Africa epitomise our efforts to educate and unite and between the Ball of Confusion (Temptations 1970) and Rudder’s 2019 Land of Confusion we learn to trust these droplets of sanity in the ocean of insanity we insulate as education. Our interest in wealth is our demise.
Thank you Afra, Marla Dukharan, Lloyd Best, George Beckford, others. We have to continue these discussions even if it seems hopeless. I am convinced that we will get to that place where our leaders are more altruistic and less selfish. But the breakthrough will come through pain and breakdown of much of the relationships which we now foster with each other.
I echo the simple sentiments of the first comment. THANK YOU! Your efforts resemble that of a flicker in the abyss – they are highly appreciated.