In 2010, after becoming the first female Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Kamla Persad Bissessar was named by Time Magazine as one of the Top Ten Female Leaders in the World. Mrs. Persad Bissessar would then use her influence to go on to represent this country on a number of international platforms, including Harvard University, CARICOM, the Commonwealth and the United Nations where her voice was always welcomed and respected for the authority and respect that it commanded. It is therefore a national travesty that the current Prime Minister can barely even be listed in the top ten of CARICOM leaders, ranking to the bottom of the recent poll, as he has squandered all of the goodwill and recognition that was built up by the more diplomatic leaders who came before him. It is therefore no wonder, that Mrs. Persad Bissessar is still able to use her international recognition to continue to serve this nation, where the current Prime Minister continues to fail, and she would have definitely ranked higher than Keith Rowley in this poll had it extended to all politicians rather than simply the Prime Ministers, adding more insult to injury.
But Mrs. Persad Bissessar was not the only thing worthy of awards in the UNC administration, as in 2014, the $50 bill that commemorated our Fifty Years of Independence also won the coveted Bank Note of the Year award by the International Bank Note Society. The $50 bill received that award not only due to its brilliant and vibrant design, which was a true representation of our multi-faceted society, but also due to the new and advanced security features that were installed. It was noted that this $50 note was actually the very first polymer note issued by a Central Bank in the Caribbean at the time, and as such, the security measures were not only cutting edge for the country, but for the region at large, and represented pioneering technology in the fight against counterfeiting and money laundering across the globe.
It was therefore surprising that in 2019, when it was announced by the PNM that they were adopting polymer notes to replace all of our currency, that they were not only redesigning the $50 award winning note, but also that the design features would offer less advanced protection in terms of the security features they were incorporating. This was not only a step backward in terms of the design of the note, but the replacement of the bill would also come with an additional cost to purchase a new replacement for a note that was only five years old.
With this in mind, it therefore shouldn’t shock anyone to learn that the PNM is now forced to replace their $100 note due to the lack of security features which has allowed it to be easily copied and counterfeited. The announcement by the Central Bank that the $100 note will be replaced with an upgraded model in December should be an embarrassment for all involved in the procurement of this polymer note in 2019, as it represents a complete failure and waste of money by this government. And while I am acutely aware that the design of this new $100 bill will not be anything comparable to the $50 commemorative bill, I have to wonder if they will not be copying the security features that made it a superior note.
You know, in 2013, Mrs. Persad Bissessar was also named by Vanity Fair as one of the Top Ten Best Dressed World Leaders by Vanity Fair Magazine, alongside other leaders such as Barrack Obama and David Cameron. And while I’m sure it’s not something that Keith Rowley would ever concern himself with, as he doesn’t appear to have any regard for his personal appearance, it is things like this that add to the level of respect and recognition that world leaders have among their peers. And this extends to anything and everything that represents our nation and our culture. such as Ache Abrahams capturing the Miss World Caribbean title, or some approximation of a doubles being featured in the New York Times. In order for us to have National Pride, we must first have something to be proud of, and the PNM and Keith Rowley has been failing at this consistently. I would imagine that if you asked someone the last time they fest genuine national pride, it might be sometime between 2010 to 2015, and the correlation between that and Kamla Persad Bissessar’s leadership cannot be ignored. And so at the very least, the PNM can give us a currency note that we can feel pride in, at least for the short amount of time that it remains in our hands, before the government snatches it back for property tax and other nonsense of the like.
Best regards,
Ravi Balgobin Maharaj
Mob: +1 868 476-6181
Email: ravibmaharaj@gmail.com