TCI News Now!

by David Tapfer

The “Dawning of a New Day” is the slogan of the Progressive National Party. I suppose to denote another new beginning for a party that indeed has had to start all over a couple of times before.

David Tapfer is a retired, US-born engineer and management executive. He is the former chairman of the Middle Caicos Branch of the Peoples Democratic Movement

All dawnings are not good! For example, how did the Haitian people feel the morning after the earthquake struck? This was the dawning of a very new but not a better day.

After Hurricane Ike beat up Grand Turk, South Caicos and took the roof off Raymond Gardiner High School, it was the dawning of very new tough times.

The residents of Middle Caicos woke the morning after Hurricane Hanna. After finding little damage in the town, we hurried to the causeway. We were stranded! The tides were flowing through the dirt roadbed; the plastic cloth lay in tatters. It was in all ways a disaster.

One hundred years ago a bigger and better ship sailed. The Titanic was bigger and supposed to be better. It held all classes of passengers from the poorest in steerage to first class folks with their fancy clothes and jewelry. When it sank there were not enough lifeboats and very many people went down with the ship. The captain was never seen again. The next morning’s dawn was full of that disaster. A slower smaller ship carried away the survivors. That was a blue trip.

We had an Inquiry. It revealed what Bigger and Better and unstoppable progress voted in two years before was all about -- our own serious disaster. The prosecutions begin next month and may last for years.

We need to look around at the results of our last elected bigger better government. Two stadiums and no new schools, two new hospital buildings but broken health care. People paying to use private clinics, the DR and USA doctors. We got casinos and lost our prescription drugs

Draconian taxes on our backs to pay millions in the left over bills. Obligations that will last for 20 years and more.

Nikki Beach and Ambergris Cay closed. Star Island, Dellis Cay, Royal Reef, St Charles Place, Lucayan Condos, Middle Caicos West, Joe Grant Cay, Conch Bar Government Building, the Causeway, Clement Howell, TCI Bank gone with our money, the toxic dump, National Insurance stripped of millions. All of them, monuments to our disaster!

We have an expanded $40 million runway but when, if ever, will a wide body aircraft ever land? Middle and North Caicos airports are now history.

Would the survivors and the relatives of those lost on the original Titanic ever set sail on a similar ship and with the same crew? The Titanic’s sister ship Britannic, launched years after Titanic, incorporated every improvement. After short service, it blew up and sank!

Will the voters of the TCI set sail on another Titanic trip? Will they sail with the crew of our own Bigger Better failure? With our Titanic’s doctor at the helm? With crew members Washington, Royal, Norman, Greg, Wayne and Donahue. The same staff and crew of our Titanic. I wonder.

In six weeks it will be dawn again and a new ship of state will set sail. This time we have a well informed and cautioned choice. The Blue ship, with the experienced captain and mates and a chosen crew, or the same Titanic team of our own disaster. Will we board the yellow submarine and sink even lower?

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