Maroc - NEWSDAY.CO.TT - A la Une - 16/Dec 03:37

Glaring u-turns

TOO MUCH politics has been at play in the state’s handling of the Lisa Morris-Julian case. Three line ministers, PNM and UNC, agreed to release the investigative report into the D’Abadie/O’Meara MP’s death. Three ministers U-turned. Today, December 16, exactly one year after Ms Morris-Julian and two of her children died in a fire at her Arima home, the public still has no answers. That’s an indictment. It might be asking too much to expect public officials to keep promises. But who can trust the word of a politician given how this matter has unfolded? “We believe it is important to uncover the facts and present them to the public,” said Fitzgerald Hinds, then national security minister, in January. He never did. “I have absolutely no difficulty making this report public,” said Marvin Gonzales, Mr Hind’s successor, in March. He never did. “We have perused the document; we want to bring it to members of the public,” said Roger Alexander, the Homeland Security Minister, in May. To date, he has not done so. In fact, Mr Alexander told this newspaper on December 12 something completely opposite. “A decision was made at the Cabinet level that the report not be made public,” he said. “We didn’t want the deceased’s family to relive those tragic events.” However, it’s the lack of answers that compounds the tragedy. And why did the Cabinet see it fit to table the Niquan worker death report in Parliament in June but not this one? That matter also involved traumatised relatives. In any event, some of Ms Morris-Julian’s family members have expressed a wish to see the findings. The public deserves to see them, too. After all, we likely paid for the probe into this fire. Mr Alexander breezily informs us that “no suspicion or evidence of foul play was detected,” and “fire officers were exonerated.” Yet, who can take that at face value? What is the “exoneration” of which this minister speaks when there are question marks over systems and resources, not individuals? And don’t reassuring findings like the ones he divulged make it even more fitting for the report to be released? It was the UNC Cabinet that in May lamented the Fire Service was “understaffed,” with a shortfall of 420 officers. Just last month, the minister confirmed the system is a “mess” after a fire station fiasco in Sangre Grande. That the death of a mother and two children has turned into a political football is made clear by Mr Alexander’s telling reference to “allegations that were made by certain ministers in the PNM” and by Mr Gonzales’ recent glaring failure, to explain his own reasons for not releasing the report. We’ve moved from a tragic loss of life to a tragic dismantling of accountability. The post Glaring u-turns appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.