TCI News Now!

By David Tapfer

This holiday season has started out with bad news. The USA's Hostess Baking Company, after 84 years in business, is bankrupt and is shutting down. Our supply of Twinkies, that straight stick cream-filled confection, is gone.

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

Since most of the workers who carried Twinkies in their lunchboxes have lost their jobs in recent years, I suspect this is the real cause of the company’s demise. Layers of taxation and regulation certainly did not help but I doubt that any government will pay much attention.

As a proud British territory, we do not officially celebrate Thanksgiving Day. This is because Thanksgiving grew from the pilgrims leaving England for America in 1620 as a result of religious persecution.

However, with the large population of Yankees in the TCI, turkeys were often found on our tables last week.

Turkeys and hams were the traditional holiday handout of the political parties during the season but, with the new anti bribery voting laws, this might be halted. According to what we hear, all the law did was move the bribes further away from the polling places. The pre-loading of the voters’ lists also went underground, so the wins were only by 11, 17 and 30 votes. That “at large” business showed who is loved in the Caicos Islands and left some with a mad on.

The fact is we elected some of the turkeys as the government of the day. Guys that celebrated shutting down tourism, the national bank and a resort will now manage our development and finances. I am really looking forward to this.

I was going to suggest that the PDM take down Hilly Ewing’s photo and replace it with the three blind mice who brought down the corrupt government. Hilly’s son had turn-coated but since the other son stayed loyal and won I guess it could stay for the time being and also be erected at Progress House. What ever happened with the ownership of that place? Carlos promised to straighten that out. Maybe Mike sent them some Dominican or Venezuelan pesos to do a deal. So much for transparency.

When we moved to Conch Bar, Ma Charity was raising pigs and all kinds of farm produce. Now the British have to show us how to do it. She also raised chickens but the cats out-populated the birds and that was the end of the poultry. If the population keeps leaving Middle Caicos, we may have to have a land rush giveaway to get folks back. In the meantime it is still the most beautiful island.

Come to think of it, Mike was ahead of us on that too. Mike, Clayton, and Jeffrey gave away the whole western end of the biggest island to a bankrupt Miami developer. Has the Bar Council ever addressed conflict of interest? That land deal was supposed to be in court one year ago but just maybe is scheduled for stage two or three of the court cases. When if ever will they do number one? Governor Ric says there will be no letup. However the people want to know after four years when the court will start up!

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