The Gravel & Concrete saga is a mirror of some of the weaknesses in the Westminster Parliamentary system of government.
The winning party is forced almost from Day One to look for places on state bodies for some of its key supporters as pay back for helping them in the political campaign leading up to victory at the polls.
And given Grenada’s shortage of competent top flight managers, a number of persons find themselves on boards due to party affiliation even knowing that they are not capable of handling the job assigned to them.
This also extends to some persons who end up holding ministerial portfolios after winning a seat on Election Day to sit in Parliament.
The expectation of their supporters is that these MP’s must be given a job as a Minister by the Prime Minister.
It is not uncommon for these MPs to be lacking in competence and cannot cut it as a competent and serious performer at the governmental level.
Despite the long overdue visit to Gravel & Concrete as the line minister, the Prime Minister finally met with the staff on Tuesday to hear from them firsthand about some of the things taking place at the state body.
THE NEW TODAY is urging the Prime Minister to keep his eyes on Gravel & Concrete as some of the workers who were bold enough to stand up and speak out at the meeting against the ills taking place are very mindful that they might be victimised in time to come.
PM Dickon Mitchell has found himself in an uncomfortable position to take any kind of severe and drastic action at the management level of the corporation at this point in time with a general election due in the coming months.
He took too long to meet with the staffers to hear of their many grievances against questionable management at this important state body.
The argument from within the corridors of power in Congress is that PM Dickon Mitchell is extremely busy and cannot attend to everything in short order.
The general feeling is that even if the Prime Minister decided to hold onto the Ministry of Infrastructure Development that he needed a Minister of State and a strong Permanent Secretary to perform the job as watchman for him.
The under-utilised MP for St George North-east Ron Redhead could have been brought back into the fold in the Cabinet and given specific instructions with respect to overlooking some of the statutory bodies and filing periodic reports for the Prime Minister.
Tuesday’s meeting at Gravel & Concrete might just be the precursor to uncovering many more wrong-doing at the corporation.
The workers know a lot and only told Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell a mere handful of the bad things taking place at the state body.
If the Prime Minister is inclined to hold a Commission of Inquiry into Gravel & Concrete, he cannot limit it to the 2022-26 period but has to go way back into the years of mismanagement that also took place under the former New National Party (NNP) government of Keith Mitchell.
The Lindsay Worrell report that was started under late Prime Minister Herbert Blaize in the 1984-90 period is well-documented about mass corruption in several state bodies under the watch of Keith Mitchell as the then Minister of Communication and Works.
The more recent reports are numerous about some of the activities of the current staffers of Gravel & Concrete who are engaged in “feeding where they are tied” as cows in a field full of grass.
The Prime Minister heard only a few things including one in which Security Personnel are able to pinpoint who is leaving the compound with more concrete blocks than seen on the payment slip.
The workers know of underhand deals in which some staffers dispatch trucks to their private homes to pour ready-mix concrete.
There is also a need to look at the books of the Grenada National Lottery Authority (GNLA) to see who in Gravel & Concrete are collecting cheques from it and for what purpose.
The information swirling around in some quarters on the compound at Mt Rush is that these lotto cheques are cashed at Gravel & Concrete and not at any commercial bank on the island.
THE NEW TODAY also has concrete information about a senior person at Gravel & Concrete being made to pay back a certain sum of money that she took without permission from the person involved.
In simple layman terms that is called “stealing” or “thiefing” and some in positions of authority are fully aware of this incident.
Let the Gravel & Concrete situation serve as a reminder to NDC and all other political parties vying for office that they are put into office by the people as trustees of the national assets.