Winston Dookeran must be watching those hip commercials on US television. It is the only thing that can explain his insertion of the punctuation "Done!" Three thousand dollar old age pension. Done! Laptops for school children. Done! You get the idea. It was the obligatory political peacock strut that is typical of any budget presentation. Were it not there its absence would have constituted the only real manifestation of change as promised by the People's Partnership. At the conclusion of the budget presentation, Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley opined that there was the conspicuous omission of the change campaigned upon by the Government. Just how much "change" was practical, given the abyss into which the last government hurled this country with gay abandon?
Listening to the Finance Minister, I got the impression that the Government was trying to do the partnership thing that they boxed themselves into. There seemed to have been a shout-out to every group in society, if only to acknowledge that their concerns are garnering serious consideration. The Artists Coalition was given special mention, a rare honour that would never have been accorded them under the previous administration. This was perhaps guaranteed though with a caveat that they take their cultural sector master plan and whittle it down considerably from the lofty perch of in excess of $1 billion to a note hummed just above $130 million. Also in a nod to the diversification thrust, mention was made of the fashion industry. Mr Dookeran announced that the Government would assist the sector in sourcing foreign markets for what he seems to think is a dynamic product. I am not sure if any money has been committed to this reckless gamble but I certainly hope not.
You could not tell by my appearance, but I have always had an interest in fashion. This is not going to earn me any friends but I feel obligated to say that local fashion is absolutely ghastly. At all of the fashion shows that I have followed in this country, the models always appear not dressed but upholstered. The local design capability for the most part is not even within light years of competitiveness on the international fashion scene. There is another very serious problem with local fashion. Many years ago I purchased a pair of jeans-pants from a high-profile local designer. The cut was so fundamentally flawed that had I worn it for more than the week that I did, I would surely have been rendered sterile, such were the forces being exerted on my garbage, owing solely to poor design and assembly of the garment.
Staying on the point of aiming to seem all-inclusive, Mr Dookeran also made reference to the onerous, 45-minute drive to Maracas.
I am still a little puzzled by the suggestion of a tunnel from Tunapuna to...Maracas? I suppose this would open up the North Coast to allow for the free flow of shark and bake to the clamouring population on the east-west corridor. After all, fresh is best! Shark and bake really does not hold up to microwaving. "Richard's" will have to put a couple more burners in when the shark and bake economy takes off! Seriously folks! I am already seeing strong criticism of this concept online: "So wait! You have money to dig a tunnel from Tunapuna to Maracas but you cannot give police their 40 per cent!" Hold up! The man made it very clear that a business plan would have to be done to examine the feasibility of this idea. A business plan, as far as I understand it, typically demonstrates how a particular project, in simple terms, can be funded in a self-sustaining manner. So there is no real danger of seeing Jack Warner in a hard hat breaking ground in the floor of the Tunapuna market, unless of course Jules Verne writes the business plan.
I am going to have to pore over the particulars of the budget to form any serious opinion about the document, but I have to say I was very impressed with the Government's proposal to deal with the Clico debacle. I do believe that the entire nation is not aware of how this high-flying billionaires club has threatened the financial stability of this country. One friend of mine has been teetering at the edge of insanity as he struggles every day with how this investment giant has taken his nest egg, with which he intended to purchase a house with his new wife, and frittered it away. He is just one of many people in this country who are facing if not financial ruin, at the very least a dream many years deferred. With the Government's decision to pay policyholders $75,000 or less and others with greater sums a government IOU amortised over 20 years, I am not sure that anyone could have come up with a better strategy to diffuse that nuclear weapon.
What I am wondering, and this may have been discussed, is whether policyholders falling into the latter category will be able to leverage this government IOU (which I sincerely hope is not written on a cocktail napkin) to get a housing loan? This would be important, because you know what they say, a promise (to pay) is a comfort to a fool.
I do not want to say too much without the benefit of the budget debate, but I am comforted by an expressed commitment to learn from the mistakes of the past. In a flashback to the squandermania of the last administration, Mr Dookeran announced that the rapid rail has cost taxpayers in excess of $500 million so far! The Finance Minister, in addressing the very many demands from the public–$20 minimum wage, public sector salary increases and the like–made a very fleeting reference to the introduction of a performance-based system of reward. It was a point that Dr Morgan Job, on an over-populated television post-budget panel, felt was not emphasised enough. Dr Job, in my opinion, is easily one of the sharpest minds in this country. Ah Dr Job, you must accept that when a star burns so bright, others fear to draw near.
He made the point that the Government wasted the perfect opportunity to attempt to change the culture of dependency during the campaign by trying to use the upsurge in popularity to inculcate in people a commitment to increased productivity. I have always argued that we cannot continue to pay our salary increases without a commensurate increase in delivery! Therein lies a critical problem. Mr Dookeran explained that "the budget is driven by the need to fulfil the expectations of the people." Expectations of a people are an immeasurable quantity. What the Government must do with this budget is make it clear through properly enunciated policies that the gimme-gimme days are at an end. If this cannot be done then economic realities will clash with expectations of the electorate and the end result will be...the People's Partnership? Done!