If it weren’t just an­oth­er day in a strange kind of par­adise, this would have been a Mid­night Rob­ber’s re­frain about the hav­oc wreaked by loose tongues, Machi­avel­lian bul­lies and the suf­fer­a­tion of cit­i­zens. We are un­der the yolk of home in­vaders. Re­as­sure us of the coun­try’s ca­pa­bil­i­ty to pre-empt and pre­vent crime. Don’t tell us we are re­spon­si­ble for the so­lu­tions. But there is some respite from vex­a­tions to the spir­it. The Min­is­ter of Fi­nance has good rea­son to feel sat­is­fied with his man­age­ment of our fi­nances.   

True, the eco­nom­ic pun­dits and the many feel­ing the pres­sures of life may think dif­fer­ent­ly about his ten-year fi­nan­cial stew­ard­ship. But there are tan­gi­bles oth­er than the hard eco­nom­ic da­ta. The well-be­ing of cit­i­zens, a rather sub­jec­tive con­cept, the ul­ti­mate con­cern of any gov­ern­ment, en­com­pass­es the qual­i­ty of life, in­come and ed­u­ca­tion­al lev­els, fam­i­ly re­la­tion­ships and sta­bil­i­ty, hap­pi­ness and life sat­is­fac­tion.

Opin­ions will dif­fer on the state of the coun­try.  But one can­not de­ny the se­vere ad­ver­si­ties the coun­try faced dur­ing that ten-year pe­ri­od. The eco­nom­ic tur­bu­lence and de­cline gen­er­at­ed by wars in the Mid­dle East and Ukraine, the sup­ply chain chal­lenges, de­pressed goods and oil prices, plum­met­ing nat­ur­al gas prices, falling pro­duc­tion, the wham­my of COVID-19 that re­sult­ed in the shut­down of busi­ness coun­try­wide, re­defin­ing busi­ness meth­ods, health man­age­ment, and pover­ty. It was a decade of nav­i­gat­ing our fi­nan­cial af­fairs in a hos­tile en­vi­ron­ment. Ca­pa­bly. Still, there re­mained eco­nom­ic and so­cial sta­bil­i­ty and the econ­o­my has re­bound­ed af­ter the pan­dem­ic, and even though there’s glob­al un­cer­tain­ty, the na­tion is on a growth path. Much of the progress is al­so at­trib­ut­able to the tenac­i­ty and re­silience of our strong busi­ness sec­tor.

Like sev­er­al com­men­ta­tors, one may wish to crit­i­cise the Min­is­ter’s per­for­mance. But the renowned busi­ness gu­ru Michael Porter be­lieves “na­tion­al pros­per­i­ty is cre­at­ed, not in­her­it­ed. It does not grow out of a coun­try’s nat­ur­al en­dow­ments, its labour pool, its in­ter­est rates, or its cur­ren­cy’s val­ue, as clas­si­cal eco­nom­ics in­sists.” The over­rid­ing fea­ture of the suc­cess of coun­tries and com­pa­nies is vi­sion, ef­fec­tive­ly deal­ing with the pres­sures and shocks of the day, in­no­v­a­tive­ness, and bal­anc­ing pri­or­i­ties. Com­pet­i­tive home­grown busi­ness­es with the vi­sion and strength to ride the tor­rents con­tribute to it. Porter as­serts that “a na­tion’s com­pet­i­tive­ness de­pends on the ca­pac­i­ty of its in­dus­try to in­no­vate and up­grade.”

The fact that this small and vul­ner­a­ble coun­try has re­mained so­cial­ly and eco­nom­i­cal­ly sta­ble in the face of daunt­ing ex­ter­nal shocks and home­grown crime is not an ac­ci­dent. Sta­bil­i­ty can­not be achieved in a vac­u­um. There is a hand on the steer­ing wheel. We are a po­lit­i­cal­ly po­larised so­ci­ety, mould­ed by dif­fer­ent ex­pe­ri­ences, ed­u­ca­tion, as­pi­ra­tions, ex­pec­ta­tions, cul­ture, and nur­tured in dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ties. We aren’t eas­i­ly sat­is­fied with who­ev­er is in gov­ern­ment. But we should pause and re­flect on the gains.

Ac­cord­ing to the IMF re­port of May 2024, for the first time in a decade, T&T is on a tra­jec­to­ry of grad­ual and sus­tained eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery. GDP ex­pand­ed in 2023, in­di­cat­ing the strong per­for­mance of the non-en­er­gy sec­tor, in­fla­tion is be­low two per cent, there’s growth in bank cred­it, the fi­nan­cial sys­tem re­mains strong, and all the nor­mal in­di­ca­tors of a coun­try’s per­for­mance, in­clud­ing pub­lic ex­pen­di­ture and debt ra­tios, in­ter­na­tion­al re­serve cov­er­age, and cur­rent ac­count sur­plus, ap­pear rea­son­ably good. The IMF un­der­scored the need to main­tain pru­dent macro­eco­nom­ic poli­cies to sup­port the cur­rent ex­change rate. The GDP per capi­ta is high­est among many small and medi­um-sized coun­tries and even de­vel­oped ones, as is life ex­pectan­cy. The un­em­ploy­ment rate be­low five per cent is low­er than for most coun­tries. Ac­cord­ing to the UNDP 2022 Hu­man De­vel­op­ment In­dex, we are ranked 67 out of about 193 sov­er­eign states. 

Of course, gov­er­nance and man­age­ment per­for­mance is­sues are man­i­fest in the high crime rate, and en­dem­ic prob­lems in ed­u­ca­tion, wa­ter and health. How­ev­er, from an in­ter­na­tion­al per­spec­tive, T&T has grown sub­stan­tial­ly over the years. We have been ex­em­plary in elec­toral democ­ra­cy, which is why I cringe at calls for elec­tion ob­servers. Sub­stan­tial in­vest­ments have gone in­to so­cial pro­tec­tion for vul­ner­a­ble cit­i­zens and hu­man de­vel­op­ment. Whether funds are reach­ing the most vul­ner­a­ble is ques­tion­able. Man­age­ment of these funds, school man­age­ment and dis­ci­pline, gang-re­lat­ed and oth­er kinds of vi­o­lence, traf­fick­ing, cor­rup­tion, the car­bun­cles of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, lack of ac­count­abil­i­ty, and in­ef­fi­cien­cy in the pub­lic sec­tor are painful re­minders that mon­ey alone is not a so­lu­tion. How­ev­er, we have re­mained a fi­nan­cial­ly sta­ble and peace­ful coun­try.

In the eye of the storm, the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance set out for shore. He land­ed us safe­ly.