With its first bud­get ahead, the ex­pec­ta­tion is for the Gov­ern­ment to ar­tic­u­late, through its fi­nance, trade and ex­ter­nal af­fairs min­istries, its ap­proach­es to ex­pand­ing the econ­o­my in­to a re­silient, dy­nam­ic and ex­pan­sive non-en­er­gy ex­port pro­duc­er to earn for­eign ex­change.

Those con­sid­ered to be in the line-up for larg­er and more as­sured slices of the forex pie are thus be­com­ing very vo­cal as bud­get day ap­proach­es. Thus far, the Gov­ern­ment has been con­cen­trat­ing on trans­paren­cy over which com­pa­nies and in­di­vid­u­als are hav­ing what may be con­sid­ered an in­side track to the for­eign ex­change re­serves.

The con­tentions and de­mands have reached the point where the Gov­ern­ment has heard from two Cen­tral Bank gov­er­nors that they will not break the law to re­veal the names of those who re­ceive forex. Hav­ing reached that dead end, the Gov­ern­ment has now fall­en back on the op­tion of chang­ing the law to al­low the Cen­tral Bank to re­veal the com­pa­nies and in­di­vid­u­als who swal­low up T&T’s forex.

It is well-known that the forex serves the pur­pose of sev­er­al vi­tal­ly im­por­tant as­pects of eco­nom­ic and so­cial life. Among them is the need to en­gen­der eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment by mak­ing forex avail­able so that ex­porters can pur­chase raw ma­te­ri­als for the pro­duc­tion of ex­ports.  

Even be­fore it was elect­ed to of­fice, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress spokesper­sons were af­ter in­for­ma­tion on the en­ti­ties re­ceiv­ing forex and in what quan­ti­ties. How­ev­er, de­spite the cur­rent push, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her Gov­ern­ment have still not ar­tic­u­lat­ed in clear and eco­nom­i­cal­ly rel­e­vant de­vel­op­men­tal terms, a pol­i­cy po­si­tion on the use to which the forex re­serves will be put, rather than sim­ply dis­clos­ing who is re­ceiv­ing it. 

It is far more im­por­tant for the Gov­ern­ment to out­line a clear plan and pro­gramme for the in­dus­tries that should have and will gain a pre­mier po­si­tion in the line at the com­mer­cial banks for the ac­qui­si­tion of forex, and why this should be so.

The pol­i­cy should in­clude a full par­cel, in­clud­ing a gov­ern­ment-sup­port­ed pro­gramme to broad­en the base of the econ­o­my through the build­ing of a dy­nam­ic ex­port sec­tor, fund­ed by the forex earned al­most ex­clu­sive­ly by the en­er­gy sec­tor. The pol­i­cy has to shift from the arith­metic of po­lit­i­cal ge­og­ra­phy to the de­vel­op­ment of an ex­port pro­duc­tion base.

In such a con­text, the Gov­ern­ment has to out­line a pro­gram­mat­ic pol­i­cy which can dri­ve pro­duc­tion in the econ­o­my in the right di­rec­tion, through the stim­u­la­tion of en­tre­pre­neur­ship and en­tre­pre­neurs.  

Stat­ed dif­fer­ent­ly, fair­ness and use­ful­ness in the util­i­sa­tion of the forex must be de­ter­mined not by ge­og­ra­phy and oth­er non-es­sen­tial cri­te­ria, but rather what the forex is to be in­vest­ed in.

What is al­so im­por­tant is the sec­ondary ef­fect of hav­ing the forex used for ex­port pur­pos­es: suc­cess will breed an­oth­er gen­er­a­tion of ex­porters.

It’s a fo­cused al­lo­ca­tion and us­age of the forex that can de­vel­op the pro­duc­tive sec­tor. Hav­ing a plan and pro­gramme to meet the needs of the econ­o­my will send the sig­nal to the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty that what is need­ed more than ever in this gen­er­a­tion is ex­port en­tre­pre­neur­ship.

So, this me­dia house says yes to leg­is­la­tion, but on­ly if it pro­duces a pro­gramme that al­lows for the al­lo­ca­tion and dis­burse­ment of for­eign ex­change for its most pro­duc­tive use.