In 1991 when C. Washington Misick became Chief Minister of our country, he was offered a development package by the British government that included the building of a prison. Mr. Misick asked that instead of allocating those funds to prison building, if it could be reassigned to the building of the Community College. He was told no! the money was earmarked for that purpose, and if you want to make use of those funds, that was what it was going to be spent on. Mr. Misick then advocated for the prison to be built in Middle Caicos for a number reasons in particular. The first one being that it would create some employment opportunities in that island, the use of agriculture as a rehabilitative exercise would be beneficial and seeing that it would be isolated from regular community activities, it would act as a deterrent. The British put nix to those proposals and said that the prison would be built in Grand Turk and available land must be found on which to erect it. It was their “British taxpayers’ money”, so it was a take it or leave it scenario. We know what happened. Johnston Construction built the prison in Grant Turk and the rest was history!
The same mentality that obtained in the 1990s can still be seen today, and they are using our money that we raised to carry out their agenda. Now that is the galling part. Even though they are responsible for preparing the people of the Turks and Caicos Islands to relieve themselves of the yoke of colonialism, they continue to pay scant regard to that responsibility. Their focus is on law and order and the social, economical and educational advancement of the people over whom they lord just go out the window.
Let us examine things in the light of the recently “debated” budget for 2012/13. It can be said that I have taken a fool’s comfort in the number that there will be a projected surplus of some $3.7M. Since that is a significant “millstone”, that had to be met in order that elections can take place this year, I have no problem with that. However, it is the underlying numbers that give me pause and a reason to be concerned. As is captioned above, I would concentrate on the stark disparity between education and law enforcement.
I understand from the PS/Finance that the reduction in allocation for scholarships has been reduced to $2.65M this year because there are 70 or so returning students that no provision needed to be made for. But when I looked at the outturn of $3.823M for last year, something is definitely wrong with that picture. What was not said, was how many scholarships would be available to be given to students wanting to study abroad on government sanctioned programmes. While it is clearly laudable that, if programmes can be offered at the community College, that overseas funding should not be made available. If it is the express intention to build capacity at home, I am all for that once it does not take away from the beneficial experience of a proper education.
However, when you look at the subvention for the Community College this year, you would see that there is a reduction of some $200K. That does not reflect the stated pronouncement or policy decision. If it clearly the view that there should be more home grown educational attainment, then there must be a commensurate uptick in the subvention to reflect such a policy.
The numbers then reflect that in addition to staffing and other costs of the Education Department, there is just $4.25M allocated for ongoing education and training. The law and order component of the budget paints a different picture. First of all for SIPT and civil recovery there is $13.4M and added to that close to another $1M for the conversion of the former Myrtle Rigby Health Complex into additional court rooms to accommodate the impending trials of those persons that have had their sufficiency hearings and must attend at the Supreme Court on charges that include conspiracy and money laundering. Those amounts in and of themselves represent THREE times that for education. So you can see what the priority of the British continues to be with respect to Turks and Caicos islanders.
They see no problem in underfunding education or the social safety nets that would bolster the self-worth of the people of this country. Their response then, as it is now is to build bigger prison systems to take care of those persons that have fallen by the wayside because they were not given adequate opportunities to avail themselves to a proper education that would take them off the streets and into meaningful and beneficial occupational pursuits!
The British over the years have abdicated their responsibility to our country. They have failed in their oversight over time, and when the proverbial mess hits the fan, then, their reaction is to yank the chains of control, take absolute change and then do really nothing to alleviate the situation. On the one hand, they have said they have put in place systems that should work. However, instead of allowing that to happen, they put in another layer to insulate and isolate themselves fro the people that they are responsible for.
If you tell a child that the fire is hot and will burn him and every time he goes near the flame you pull him back, he will never know what the real effects are. Sometimes you have to allow him to get burn so that he can of his own volition put in mitigating measures to protect him from getting burn again in the future.
So what we can see from the 2012/13 budget is that it reflects the priorities of our British masters rather than what is required by the rank and file Turks and Caicos Islander. As flawed as the Consultative Forum might be, many of their members spoke to these inconsistencies. But like everything else, Todd will grin, smile and say in spite of what you who are feeling it say, I know best for you and would act accordingly and sign into law whatever Appropriations Bill that he sees fit so to do!
Royal s. Robinson, MBE
