DR. LUNCHEON is right that the Linden losses will be felt for years. He also said that a way forward would be to ensure the highest level of transparency during any negotiations. This requires other stakeholders to be included other than the political parties. He said that it is difficult to imagine that a rate increase could have morphed into the situation currently unveiling in Linden.
He talked about lessons learnt and the need to prevent matters from getting out of hand. Instead of talking about
command and control, he should have mentioned the need to have engaged Linden prior to the increase during the outreach in developing the budget.
The PNC should have done the same thing before agreeing and backing out of the increase agreement. Linden needed to hear why, how, when and who will be affected by the increases. A conservation approach could have been suggested as a way of avoiding an increase.

Proactive governance means anticipating what may become problems and avoiding or planning how to best deal with them. The security heads should have had better plans to control any outbreaks rather than react to them.
Immediate, clear and factual information should be better and more widely publicised when reporting or responding to charges whether true or not. If necessary, pay for these responses to be printed in the media. This is where most charges are printed and information is read by the opposition supporters. How else will they learn the facts behind charges? There are lots of self-inflicted wounds not only by Linden but all the parties. The leaders must now re-think strategies of accusations and denials and seek common ground wherever possible or the mobs will lead them into chaos.