They should make a film noir about WASA

Jack Nicholson in Roman Polanski's Chinatown

THE GREAT thing about Roman Polanski’s Chinatown (1974) is that it’s about water. The movie is a classic film noir, complete with suspense and intrigue on a level that reaches the sublime.

Private detective Jake Gittes (played by Jack Nicholson) is hired by a woman to spy on her husband to find out if he’s having an affair. The only problem is this woman, we find out, turns out to be an imposter; is not the real wife who is in fact dead. What then ensues is an unraveling which sees Gittes slowly uncover a vast conspiracy centering on state and municipal corruption involving issues of land use, real estate and water management.

The movie is older than I am, but it still resonates strongly today. For instance, one could probably film a version of Chinatown in Trinidad, based on the intrigue at the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) alone.

This week, WASA chairman Shafeek Sultan-Khan laid bare the “institutional corruption” going on there. That such corruption has existed at WASA was, of course, not unsuspected. We only have to remind ourselves of WASA’s huge $919.5 million loss recorded in 2007 and subsequent reports that the body has lost millions worth of revenue due to collection problems.

Faye Dunawaye in a scene from Chinatown

Living in Belmont, I found it somewhat interesting to note WASA woes taking centre stage, with many nationwide complaining about a lack of water. Interesting because we in Belmont (Port-of- Spain North/St Ann’s West) are accustomed to not having a regular supply of water. Like many other parts of the country, we’ve always had the same water woes many are now complaining about, with water coming in the pipes at odd hours, maybe once a week.

Among my most memorable childhood memories are long, hot August vacations without water. Before the practice of bathing in the rain became obscured by the fact that the country’s high rate of pollutants actually renders such activity potentially bad for you, playing in the rain was de rigeur. Not having water meant regular trips to the pipe stand at the bottom of the road (or elsewhere), the filling of buckets, laundry done in other people’s homes. Multiple water tanks became a must.

Bathing in the rain de rigeur

I find it baffling that, decades later, we have not figured out this whole water issue as yet. Water is, after all, essential for life. And while not strictly speaking relevant, it is certainly ironic that we also live on an island. Many of the problems in WASA today were not unforseen. For instance, experts have been warning about the need to replace underground pipelines and sewers for decades, through successive governments.

Now water leakages have become chronic. A large proportion of water is unaccounted for, meaning that even with a rigid clamping down on user habits and strict enforcement of proper procedures at WASA, the problems of water wastage could still persist if urgent steps are not taken to replace damaged infrastructure.

In the meantime, it is downright immoral for successive governments, on both the local government and national levels, to have allowed this situation to fester. It does not take a private detective like Jake Gittes to surmise that the corruption at the lowest reaches of WASA is linked to that at the highest levels of governance. Pity, then, that consumers are the ones who will now pay for the breaches of others.

Is Basdeo Panday the next Rasputin?

Rasputin and Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday

“PANDAY just like Rasputin,” the woman in the taxi said, “no matter how much they tried to kill him they just could not get rid of him.” But Rasputin did, eventually, die. “In the end, his downfall was chocolate,” the woman said. “He loved chocolate so much so they put poison in one.” I’m not sure if this account is historically accurate (nobody really knows for sure how Rasputin–who was subject to numerous failed assassination attempts–died).

But I’m sure of one thing: Basdeo Panday will never be able to live down the events of last month. He will never be able to dust-off the fact that he contested the post of leader within his own party and lost. Not only lost, but was seriously thrashed by Kamla Persad-Bissessar.

It was a defeat so sound that in one polling station, Panday got two votes to Persad-Bissessar’s 143 (the other candidate in the race for political leader, Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, got zero at that station).

But despite this, Panday insisted on not giving up the post of Opposition Leader, which normally goes to the person best able to command the support of the majority of Opposition MPs.

The Couva North MP, who lost the internal polls even in his own constituency, said he got telephone calls from supporters telling him not to yield the post. Presumably, it was more than two.

Panday’s reluctance to let go of the post cannot be explained solely by its not inconsiderable perks (it attracts approximately $37,000 in cash benefits, including a monthly salary of $23,800.) More crucially, it involves tremendous power symbolically and constitutionally. Under the Supreme Law, the Opposition Leader provides advice and is consulted on key issues of governance.

But you would be forgiven if you were sceptical over whether or not this is really the end for Basdeo Panday. For example, when in April 2006 he was convicted of an offence under the Integrity in Public Life Act, it was probably widely thought (especially by some in the PNM) that his days as a politician were over. Yet, like Lazarus, he came back, after the conviction was quashed due to a murky affair involving one Chief Justice, one Attorney General, a Chief Magistrate and a cheque.

And while he is still appearing before the courts (this week on a bribery charge in the Port-of-Spain Magistrates’ Court) Panday has managed to maintain hold of loyal MPs more willing to embrace him than the democracy within their own party.

Let's not forget the jail time, people...When he first appeared on a bribery charge in 2004 he refused to secure bail

So, brace yourselves, dear reader, for we ain’t seen nothing yet. Last month we got a whiff of things to come; things that reminded me of the old adage: “desperate times call for desperate remedies”.

I’ll tell you what else desperate times and remedies tend to involve: disgrace. How else to describe the taint surrounding the discovery of thousands of membership cards planted at the Rienzi Complex, Couva? The Rienzi Complex is actually the home of Panday’s own Couva North constituency office. Yet, he had no qualms in going public with the discovery of the cards mere hours after the election results were made official, even though you didn’t need a card to vote. The scheme, we heard from some of his loyal MPs, went back years. So then why did they only just discover them?

“They really cyah let go, eh?” the woman in the taxi said. I listened, silently.

Novelist Amanda Smyth on the writing life and her second novel

"I was an actress in my twenties, in TV and commercials. I was in a movie called Savage Hearts (1996) starring Oliver Tobias, Richard Harris and Jerry Hall. When I was about 8, I had shyly asked Oliver Tobias for his autograph, and here I was playing the role of his wife...

"I’ve just started working on my second novel. It’s also set in Trinidad, but unlike Black Rock it’s contemporary. I feel excited about it, which is great. This is unusual for me..."--Trinidadian/Irish novelist Amanda Smyth in an interview you can read at PLEASURE.

Haiti and the 'economy of attention'

Haiti, and by extension the region, is at the centre of attention...but for how long?

"At the moment everything going through my head is colored by the fact of Haiti. Who gets to decide what help Haiti needs and how to rebuild? I'm not sure Haitians will. Who gets to decide what contemporary Caribbean literature is? Publishers in New York and London and literary scholars in American, British, and Canadian universities. Those two questions aren't comparable in degree, but are bound together in a common dilemma...

In the past year or two, I've been more involved in, and paid more attention to, the Caribbean visual art scene than to the literary scene – partly because that's where the energy seems to be, partly because Caribbean visual images seem to be doing better than Caribbean literary texts in the economy of attention..."--TOWN and Caribbean Review of Books editor Nicholas Laughlin in a wide-ranging discussion you can read here.

Dos and don’ts of disaster aid

THE aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti has demonstrated the need for a single international body capable of co-ordinating search and rescue as well as humanitarian aid in the event of a disaster anywhere in the world. The experience has taught us, and continues to teach us, that the current hodge-podge of government, regional and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) is incapable of providing, at short notice, a coordinated and penetrative relief effort when it is most needed.

Instead, we witnessed disjunction between the activities of some bodies like the United Nations (whose own staff suffered casualties) and countries like the United States and France and regional bodies like Caricom. A lot of this was obviously due to the circumstances such as the lack of proper communication infrastructure in the wake of the destruction. But it is clear that had there been a single international body, specialising in search and rescue, with clear jurisdiction to go into Haiti, thousands of lives would have been spared in the critical first 72 hours. Such a body would be akin to an international office of disaster preparedness with enough resources in different countries which would render it capable of timely and effective responses no matter what the circumstances.

But while we wait for such a body (and brace for any possible future disasters) the focus has been rightly turned to long-term aid and donations. There have been several initiatives, none of which appear to be Government sanctioned, in which people can donate aid to Haiti. These range from simple things like sending text messages to donate, handing in food and clothing at concerts, silent art auctions and making deposits at advertised bank accounts.

However, potential donors need to consider several points before handing over funds. As the co-founder of the Disaster Tracking Recovery Assistance Center (D-TRAC) Sandra Schimmelpfenning notes in several posts on her weblog, several principles should be considered:

1) Ensure that the organisation you are donating to is bona fide. Or cut out the middle-man. While several of the initiatives claim to be sending aid, inevitably some of them will not be sincere. Additionally, consider whether or not the organisation or event you are donating money to is going to pocket a fraction for hidden costs. If this is the case, you might as well cut-out the middle man and go to a recognised organisation with a good standing which will need help with its administration costs for long-term work. Don’t be fooled by some entities saying things like “all monies go to the Red Cross” when they are in no way affiliated with the Red Cross and where you have no way of ensuring that all the money is actually going to go to the Red Cross.

2) Cash is often best. Donations of items like clothing are useful, but only if they are culturally appropriate. Studies have shown that some clothing items intensify the sense of alienation felt by victims, so keep the items simple. But also remember that clothing can also clog ports unnecessarily, blocking other items like medicines which need to get in more urgently.

3) Consider holding back donations for the long-term effort.

4) Consider donating to disaster preparedness programmes, globally.

5) Don’t be afraid to take time to make an informed decision. There are many resources that can help. Like: www.reliefweb.int.