JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Wednesday, February 19, 2025

Govt’s financial moves, UNC opposes devaluation

by

88 days ago
20241123

Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley would have had a dif­fer­ent at­mos­phere around the ta­ble in Guyana at yes­ter­day’s sec­ond Cari­com crime sym­po­sium than the Gov­ern­ment had at Mon­day’s T&T Par­lia­ment sit­ting where no­ti­fi­ca­tions for the new Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) were de­bat­ed.

In con­tin­u­ing fo­cus on se­cu­ri­ty yes­ter­day, UNC MP Bar­ry Padarath’s mo­tion in Par­lia­ment against bul­ly­ing was just one as­pect of T&T’s vi­o­lent un­der­bel­ly. “The time for Green Pa­pers and talk shops is over! Dras­tic times call for dras­tic ac­tion!” Padarath de­clared of­fer­ing bi­par­ti­san an­ti-bul­ly­ing and parental re­spon­si­bil­i­ty law.

If Row­ley missed UNC’s of­fer, the supreme irony of T&T hold­ing the lead for Cari­com’s se­cu­ri­ty com­mit­tee fades in­to com­par­i­son with the fact that T&T‘s ex­pe­ri­ences with se­cu­ri­ty make it ide­al­ly lo­cat­ed to lend past, present, and fu­ture pic­tures for fel­low Cari­com ter­ri­to­ries.

Though T&T has as many prob­lems with­in its po­lice ser­vice to han­dle as out­side of it. A sit­u­a­tion is be­gin­ning to weigh on the po­lice com­mis­sion­er, re­flect­ed in her com­ments fol­low­ing Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert’s “shock” at the col­lapse of the case against sev­en of­fi­cers.

Irony al­so hov­ered on Mon­day—In­ter­na­tion­al Men’s Day—when the PolSC no­ti­fi­ca­tions were de­bat­ed: a male-dom­i­nat­ed com­mis­sion fol­low­ing the pre­vi­ous fe­male-dom­i­nat­ed en­ti­ty whose achieve­ments in­clud­ed ap­point­ing a fe­male CoP.

It’s ahead if the PolSC will ex­am­ine the ap­pli­ca­tions for CoP re­ceived since the April ad­ver­tise­ment or ex­er­cise pre­rog­a­tive, scrap it, in­sti­tute new cri­te­ria, and re­open. De­bate on no­ti­fi­ca­tions sig­nalled much is ex­pect­ed from the com­mis­sion.

Dr Wen­dell Wal­lace’s lead­er­ship gives the PolSC two voic­es with To­ba­go back­grounds—nom­i­nee Ethel Berke­ley-Hec­tor al­so hav­ing such his­to­ry—at a time­ly junc­ture sig­nalling recog­ni­tion of To­ba­go’s in­creased crime.

Gov­ern­ment has equal­ly large chal­lenges else­where re­gard­ing safe­guard­ing mon­ey—its Catch-22 sit­u­a­tion with for­eign ex­change in which Row­ley on Mon­day de­clared the Gov­ern­ment wouldn’t bow to “spe­cial in­ter­est pres­sure” to de­val­ue the dol­lar. In­deed, for­mer UNC min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath is al­so against de­val­u­a­tion—as is UNC fi­nance spokesman Dave Tan­coo, who pressed Row­ley in Par­lia­ment on a so­lu­tion.

Tan­coo told TG sub­se­quent­ly, “No to de­val­u­a­tion. Cur­rent­ly, the dol­lar is al­ready ‘float­ing’, man­aged in what’s called a ‘dirty float’ where Gov­ern­ment in­jects sup­ply to keep the price at a lev­el they wish. With de­val­u­a­tion, prices rise and stan­dards of liv­ing fall.

“Our par­ty has forex so­lu­tions root­ed in trans­for­ma­tion, not mere di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion: Cre­ate trans­par­ent, eq­ui­table dis­tri­b­u­tion and pur­sue low-hang­ing fruit like our leader’s ini­tia­tives. The in­fra­struc­ture was al­most com­plete in 2015 for sport, health, and ed­u­ca­tion tourism—nurs­ing schools, the Aquat­ic Cen­tre, and the Debe cam­pus.

“Cre­ate an en­cour­ag­ing for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment en­vi­ron­ment, in­clud­ing tax con­ces­sions for spe­cif­ic busi­ness types gen­er­at­ing jobs, with­in a se­ri­ous ap­proach to deal­ing with crime. Our 2020 na­tion­al eco­nom­ic trans­for­ma­tion plan list­ed 12 medi­um-term projects ca­pa­ble of gen­er­at­ing new in­dus­tries, jobs, and Forex. Our 2025 man­i­festo will out­line even more trans­for­ma­tion plans un­der a Per­sad-Bisses­sar gov­ern­ment.”

Bharath says de­val­u­a­tion will wors­en cit­i­zens’ sit­u­a­tion, in­creas­ing im­port prices when T&T im­ports 85 per cent of what’s con­sumed. Bharath, who wrote to Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert, of­fer­ing so­lu­tions, says the short­age is part­ly due to en­er­gy prices, his­tor­i­cal­ly low­er pro­duc­tion, and lack of oth­er rev­enue.

In the lat­est so­lu­tion, Im­bert yes­ter­day cit­ed an up­com­ing law re­quir­ing ex­port busi­ness­es in the en­er­gy sec­tor to pay in US dol­lars all tax­es (be­yond their cur­rent 50 per cent) to strength­en forex re­serves. How­ev­er, it will re­quire more im­me­di­ate plans than shoring up fu­ture sup­plies. It’s ahead of what aris­es from Im­bert’s meet­ings with busi­ness groups, in­clud­ing next month’s with the T&T Cham­ber which is do­ing a sur­vey on the sit­u­a­tion and will present rec­om­men­da­tions.

The Gov­ern­ment will al­so be test­ed mon­ey­wise on the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion’s 120th re­port rec­om­mend­ing pay hikes for PM, Op­po­si­tion Leader, MPs, Pres­i­dent, the Ju­di­cia­ry, and oth­er top sec­tors.

In ap­par­ent loom­ing gua­va sea­son—where en­er­gy prices are bare­ly what the 2025 bud­get pro­ject­ed and glob­al/US de­vel­op­ments are to be faced in 2025—amid T&T’s elec­tion year, the pub­lic an­ten­na will be keyed to na­tion­al in­ter­est dis­play.

No mat­ter that a prime min­is­ter’s cur­rent salary to run a dif­fi­cult coun­try like T&T is less than (US)$9,000 month­ly, ap­prov­ing pro­pos­als ex­cept in­creas­es for the Ju­di­cia­ry and mi­nor of­fi­cials would earn Row­ley no thanks. And UNC, read­ing “the ground” is un­like­ly to sup­port in­creas­es. 


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored