FAZAL KARIM

MP Ch­agua­nas East Con­stituen­cy

Be­hind the ve­neer of 'con­sul­ta­tion' the Kei­th Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion is guilty of 'de­mo­c­ra­t­ic despo­tism'. Alex­is de Toc­queville, in his fa­mous text Democ­ra­cy in Amer­i­ca, de­scribes it best: "the sov­er­eign pow­er ex­tends its arms over the en­tire so­ci­ety...it soft­ens them, bends them and di­rects them; rarely forces ac­tion, but it con­stant­ly op­pos­es your act­ing; it does not de­stroy, it pre­vents birth; it does not tyr­an­nize, it hin­ders, it re­press­es, it en­er­vates, it ex­tin­guish­es, it stu­pe­fies, and fi­nal­ly it re­duces each na­tion to be­ing noth­ing more than a flock of timid and in­dus­tri­ous an­i­mals, of which the gov­ern­ment is the shep­herd."

In­ter­est­ing­ly, the Kei­th Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion has in­tro­duced a litany of cut­backs to ed­u­ca­tion and train­ing and the sub-sec­tor of ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion and skills train­ing since as­sum­ing of­fice in Sep­tem­ber 2015. These in­clude the:

�2 Clo­sure of a vi­brant and im­pact­ful Min­istry of Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion and Skills Train­ing

�2 Cuts to the Gate pro­gramme from over $700 mil­lion in 2015 to $500 mil­lion by 2018

�2 Cuts in the num­ber of schol­ar­ships from 447 in 2014 to 389 in 2017

�2 Cuts to the stipends to Tech­ni­cal and Vo­ca­tion­al Ed­u­ca­tion and Train­ing (TVET) stu­dents

�2 Rein­tro­duc­tion of 12.5 per cent VAT on books and com­put­ers (pre­vi­ous­ly ze­ro-rat­ed)

�2 Dis­con­tin­u­a­tion of the lap­top pro­gramme at the sec­ondary school lev­el

In fis­cal 2017, ed­u­ca­tion and train­ing was al­lo­cat­ed TT$7.2 bil­lion or 13.5 per cent of the na­tion­al bud­get as com­pared to TT$10.1 bil­lion or 15.7 per cent of the na­tion­al bud­get in fis­cal 2015. The PNM has sig­nif­i­cant­ly cut ex­pen­di­ture on ed­u­ca­tion and train­ing in re­al and rel­a­tive terms since as­sum­ing of­fice. Is ed­u­ca­tion and train­ing no longer a pri­or­i­ty for the PNM?

UWI–Cuts to the uni­ver­si­ty sys­tem have been deep and dire. Fund­ing to the Di­rect Uni­ver­si­ty Ser­vices to UWI has been cut by TT$22.8 mil­lion (from TT$675 mil­lion in fis­cal 2016 to TT$652.2 mil­lion in fis­cal 2017) which will neg­a­tive­ly im­pact on salaries, re­pairs and main­te­nance and util­i­ties among oth­er key ar­eas of op­er­at­ing ex­pens­es. Lec­tur­ers are now be­ing co­erced in­to heav­ier work­loads and nine-month con­tracts in some in­stances–an in­dus­tri­al en­vi­ron­ment that the unions ought to be very con­cerned about. Fund­ing for schol­ar­ship win­ners pur­su­ing med­i­cine has been cut by TT$15.3 mil­lion (from TT$45.3 mil­lion in fis­cal 2016 to TT$30 mil­lion in fis­cal 2017). Fund­ing to non-schol­ar­ship win­ners at UWI (50 per cent paid through sub­si­dies at Mt Hope and 50 per cent paid through the GATE pro­gramme) has been cut by TT$19.5 mil­lion (from TT$39.5 mil­lion in fis­cal 2016 to TT$20 mil­lion in fis­cal 2017).

UTT–UTT was dec­i­mat­ed by a TT$107.7 mil­lion cut (from TT$332.7 mil­lion in fis­cal 2016 to TT$225 mil­lion in fis­cal 2017). Cab­i­net by Minute No 1219 dat­ed May 06, 2004, agreed, in­ter alia, to es­tab­lish UTT to dis­cov­er and de­vel­op en­tre­pre­neurs, com­mer­cialise re­search, and de­vel­op­ment and spawn com­pa­nies for wealth gen­er­a­tion. How will UTT cope with a 32 per cent cut in its bud­get be­tween fis­cal 2016 and fis­cal 2017? Is this a ploy for the PNM to send home staff un­der the ruse of down­siz­ing or is this an ad­mis­sion that the PNM-led UTT has failed to de­liv­er on its man­date?

TVET–All pub­licly fund­ed TVET providers have suf­fered a dark fate un­der the PNM. While many coun­tries around the world recog­nise TVET as a strat­e­gy for tack­ling youth un­em­ploy­ment, the PNM views TVET as col­lat­er­al dam­age. Dur­ing the Eu­ro­zone sov­er­eign debt cri­sis, coun­tries such as Ger­many and Aus­tria were least af­fect­ed by youth un­em­ploy­ment be­cause of well-em­bed­ded vo­ca­tion­al and ap­pren­tice­ship sys­tems. The 2016 Re­view of the Econ­o­my re­port­ed that just over 50 per cent of the un­em­ployed peo­ple in T&T dur­ing the Jan­u­ary to March 2016 pe­ri­od com­prised young peo­ple be­tween the ages of 15 to 29 years.

MuST–The Mul­ti-sec­tor Skills Train­ing (MuST) Pro­gramme (TT$28 mil­lion), Help­ing Youth Pre­pare for Em­ploy­ment (HYPE) Pro­gramme (TT$21.8 mil­lion), MIC Craft Pro­gramme (TT$12.7 mil­lion), MIC Na­tion­al Skills De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme (TT$10.6 mil­lion), MIC Pleas­antville Tech­nol­o­gy Cen­tre (TT$5.9 mil­lion), MIC Gov­ern­ment Vo­ca­tion­al Cen­tre (TT$3.6 mil­lion), MIC Pe­nal Tech­nol­o­gy Cen­tre (TT$1.3 mil­lion) and MIC Work­force As­sess­ment Cen­tre (TT$1.3 mil­lion) have been cu­mu­la­tive­ly cut by TT$85 mil­lion (from TT$172 mil­lion in fis­cal 2016 to TT$87 mil­lion in fis­cal 2017 across all of these pro­grammes and cen­tres). Our young peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly those at risk, will be ad­verse­ly af­fect­ed.

Ytepp–The Youth Train­ing and Em­ploy­ment Part­ner­ship Pro­gramme (Ytepp) Pro­gramme which was es­tab­lished through an in­ter­na­tion­al part­ner­ship with the World Bank in 1988 to curb youth un­em­ploy­ment has been cut by $49.6 mil­lion (from TT$94.6 mil­lion in fis­cal 2016 to TT$45 mil­lion in fis­cal 2017). Cy­cles 41 and 44 of Ytepp have been de­ferred un­til fur­ther no­tice be­cause of fund­ing con­straints. Stu­dent in­take has plum­met­ed be­cause of 're­struc­tur­ing ex­er­cis­es'. Staff are not able to ac­cess sev­er­ance ben­e­fits. Ytepp has been forced to re­lo­cate of­fices from leased premis­es to the Wood­ford Lodge site con­struct­ed by the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment. Ytepp is in cri­sis mode.

NESC–The Na­tion­al En­er­gy Skills Cen­tre, which has pro­duced thou­sands of tech­ni­cians over the years to sup­port the en­er­gy sec­tor, has been cut by TT$27.5 mil­lion (from TT$47.5 mil­lion in fis­cal 2016 to TT$20 mil­lion in fis­cal 2017). The Mil­i­tary-Led Pro­gramme of Ap­pren­tice­ship and Re-ori­en­ta­tion Train­ing (MY-PART) al­so man­aged by the NESC has been cut by TT$4.8 mil­lion (from TT$12.8 mil­lion in fis­cal 2016 to TT$8 mil­lion in fis­cal 2017). Ser­vol has been cut cu­mu­la­tive­ly by TT$8.1 mil­lion (from TT$27.1 mil­lion in fis­cal 2016 to TT$19 mil­lion in fis­cal 2017). How could the PNM con­tem­plate cut­ting crit­i­cal so­cial pro­grammes such as My-Part and Ser­vol when crime and de­viant be­hav­iour con­tin­ue to spi­ral out of con­trol in T&T?

The ac­tions of the PNM are those of an un­schooled gov­ern­ment. The Kei­th Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion bud­get­ed a TT$3 bil­lion deficit in Oc­to­ber 2015. By Sep­tem­ber 2016, the bud­get deficit rose to TT$7.3 bil­lion–a TT$4.3 bil­lion mis­cal­cu­la­tion. Let us pray that the PNM's pro­ject­ed bud­get deficit of TT$6 bil­lion for fis­cal 2017 (as se­vere as it is al­ready) is not er­ro­neous yet again–as the fu­ture gen­er­a­tions will have to bear the bur­den of their po­lit­i­cal in­com­pe­tence.