To date, the key par­ties in the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion race have not pre­sent­ed man­i­festos to guide vot­ers on their pro­posed plans for gov­er­nance.

The clos­est we have come is from the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), which has been ac­tive­ly cam­paign­ing longer than the in­cum­bent Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), us­ing its week­ly Mon­day Night Fo­rum to an­nounce promis­es and pro­pos­als along the way. In Au­gust of last year, the par­ty shared a draft man­i­festo and has re­cent­ly sug­gest­ed that a com­plete ver­sion will be avail­able soon. It is more es­sen­tial now for the par­ties to present clear agen­das for progress, par­tic­u­lar­ly with the Don­ald Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion rapid­ly in­tro­duc­ing poli­cies that could im­pact T&T and the Caribbean ei­ther di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly.

The na­tion has lacked a com­pre­hen­sive, doc­u­ment­ed long-term strat­e­gy for di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion and de­vel­op­ment since the Vi­sion 2020 pro­posed by the Patrick Man­ning PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion was aban­doned. Eco­nom­ic chal­lenges, par­tic­u­lar­ly due to falling oil and gas rev­enues, led to a re­vi­sion of that vi­sion, which aimed to es­tab­lish sev­en pil­lars for achiev­ing de­vel­oped-coun­try sta­tus for T&T, push­ing the tar­get to 2030.

How­ev­er, this ini­tia­tive ul­ti­mate­ly fal­tered as new ad­min­is­tra­tions took over. As we again pre­pare to elect a gov­ern­ment, the coun­try lacks a de­fin­i­tive strat­e­gy for rev­enue gen­er­a­tion that would en­sure not on­ly the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of cit­i­zens’ cur­rent lifestyles but al­so im­prove­ments for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions.

Present­ly, we are heav­i­ly de­pen­dent on an en­hanced gas sup­ply from the Drag­on gas project to re­ju­ve­nate our en­er­gy sec­tor and in­crease rev­enues, a prospect now cloud­ed by the ram­i­fi­ca­tions of US poli­cies, de­spite Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young’s re­cent ef­forts with US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio. There­fore, it is es­sen­tial for the main con­tenders in the elec­tion to out­line their strate­gies for de­vel­op­ing var­ied rev­enue sources and their plans for fi­nan­cial in­flows.

For many years, cit­i­zens have been promised ad­vance­ments in safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty, which have a sig­nif­i­cant ef­fect on pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, busi­ness growth, and at­tract­ing for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment. These ini­tia­tives have em­pha­sised the need for im­proved in­fra­struc­ture and the in­te­gra­tion of cut­ting-edge tech­nol­o­gy to safe­guard our ports and bor­ders against the im­por­ta­tion of firearms and am­mu­ni­tion, as well as dis­rupt­ing the drug trade.

Both the UNC and PNM, while in pow­er, have pre­vi­ous­ly vowed to utilise tech­nol­o­gy to en­hance po­lice de­tec­tion, in­clud­ing the digi­ti­sa­tion of po­lice records and com­put­erised ve­hi­cle man­age­ment to ac­cel­er­ate po­lice op­er­a­tions and more ef­fi­cient­ly iden­ti­fy and cap­ture sus­pects. Cit­i­zens must hear again where they stand on this.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, ad­dress­ing in­fra­struc­tur­al de­vel­op­ment to al­le­vi­ate road con­ges­tion is vi­tal for boost­ing pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and fa­cil­i­tat­ing busi­ness op­er­a­tions with the aim of en­hanc­ing for­eign ex­change op­por­tu­ni­ties through ex­ports. Most im­por­tant­ly, the next ad­min­is­tra­tion must es­tab­lish a clear strat­e­gy for gen­uine eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion.

Cur­rent­ly, To­ba­go serves as a promis­ing launch­pad for tourism, es­pe­cial­ly with the new air­port and the Mar­riott-brand­ed ho­tel in Rocky Point, which is set to add 200 rooms to the is­land’s ac­com­mo­da­tions. While this is one step, we re­main un­cer­tain about the spe­cif­ic pro­pos­als aimed at gen­uine­ly trans­form­ing the coun­try’s eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion on a wider scale.

As has been the tra­di­tion, trib­al vot­ing pat­terns are ex­pect­ed to heav­i­ly in­flu­ence the ma­jor­i­ty’s choic­es on April 28. How­ev­er, for those who pre­fer to base their de­ci­sions on sub­stan­tive is­sues and poli­cies, it would be ad­van­ta­geous for the po­lit­i­cal par­ties to present their plans for the next five years and be­yond at the ear­li­est pos­si­ble op­por­tu­ni­ty.