Zenaida focused lasciviously at the contracts awarded to Rupert Marin and Charles Ellis of SEL and BML respectively. She and the UDP, determined that the contracts were exorbitant and therefore needed to be reviewed, that is, cut. Even after empanelling a team of so called experts to review the contracts, what we are experiencing in the city is proof that the UDP does not have a clue. The big picture totally eluded the UDP and city residents are forced to endure conditions of over twenty years ago when the UDP were the municipal government.

Ernesto Vasquez of Love FM, about two weeks ago declared that the city is filthy. “It is dirty, very dirty,” he went on. That must have been a eureka moment for his audience and an epiphany for the good talk show host. The media has had a romance with the mayoress since she took office. Zenaida Moya, as the Amandala said once, has been handled with kid gloves. Her lack of knowledge of the technical aspects of management, and her inability to articulate her thoughts must have worn out Ernesto to such a point that he, for the first time, made the critical observation. Not that the municipal opposition has not been saying it all along, but the poignancy of the Ernesto’s observation has to be noted.

The contracts were designed based on what the population of the city was and on a projection of where it will go. The revision should have been with a view to upgrade those contracts thereby upgrading the quality and level of service administered by the two companies. The vindictive and myopic behavior of the UDP has resulted in a collapse of morale both there at City Hall and in City’s general population. We are living in filth, with flies taking us over, roaches running us over and rats eating us out, while stray dogs roam. We thought we were beyond those standards and what the UDP has systematically done is taken us back twenty-odd years.

The biggest implication of the UDP’s failure this far, is for the future we will be forced to endure if they become government. The opposition has not matured to being pragmatic, to a level where the big picture is more important than petty party political bickering. Being chronically miffed cannot solve and address the real issues of a rapidly growing country. It is time that we say to the UDP that the time for posturing is over. We want what we voted for and what we pay our taxes for. Do the work, please.