Peoples National Movement (PNM)………

Death of PoS, Loss of Pan

By KEN ALI

A few years ago, a pow­erful com­mittee headed by Professor Selwyn Ryan warned that crime was “a dag­ger pointed at the soft underbelly” of Port of Spain.

The Ryan team, made up of relevant experts, called on the authorities to take strategic decisions “in the shortest possible time” to save the capital city from being overrun by crime.
The government should “do whatever is necessary … to silence the guns” in nearby inner city communi­ties.
The administration of Dr. Keith Rowley ignored the stark recommendations, and, instead, set up several committees over a decade to report on the worsening crisis.
There were occasional mild rebukes from Down­town Merchants and Own­ers Association, some of whose members are tied to the business upper-crust in the pharmaceutical monop­oly, $8 billion annual food importation etc.
The city rot escalated, with shoppers flee­ing, administrative offices relocating, and small busi­nesses opting for malls and online trade.
Port of Spain has largely died a slow, agonising death, after the optimism and lustre of the early independence years.
Now, DOMA’s president-for-life Gregory Aboud has found his voice, bemoaning weak yuletide sales, vacant buildings, ineffective securi­ty, limited parking and poor sanitation.
But – like steelband, the national instrument – Port of Spain is the victim of gross neglect by PNM administra­tions that led the country for most of the recent years.
The PNM’s hypocrisy over the coat of arms matter is the shameless muttering of an organisation that kept pan under breadfruit trees while the developed world standardised and commer­cialised the instrument.
Innovative international leaders pioneered pan fac­tories, tertiary studies, and performances at prestigious concert venues.
At home, a concert hall on the outskirts of the airport proposed by then-Prime Minister Basdeo Panday was scrapped by the succes­sor administration.
While there is global ac­claim and steelband festi­vals in such diverse places as Japan, South Africa, and Switzerland, Pan Trinbago is still renting a subsidised Port of Spain office.
Local creative geniuses and Panorama players live on the edge while more than 300 steelbands in the United Kingdom rake in huge rev­enues from sponsorships, performances and tourism.
Everything calypsonian Merchant mourned a gener­ation ago in “Pan In Danger” remains true – only worse.
“Pan gone and the pan man stay,” Black Stalin ap­propriately summed it up several years ago.
There is a single political body coursing through the Port of Spain and steelband calamities.