Since be­com­ing Prime Min­is­ter, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has been say­ing that there are grave fi­nan­cial and eco­nom­ic prob­lems in our coun­try, which is true. But the Prime Min­is­ter has al­so said her Gov­ern­ment will fix the prob­lems.

The Prime Min­is­ter has al­so been clear about things she will not do. Like no prop­er­ty tax­es and no rev­enue au­thor­i­ty. And she has been equal­ly clear on things her Gov­ern­ment will do. Stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion, lap­tops in schools, get­ting the re­fin­ery go­ing.

Let’s take the re­fin­ery. How do you get the re­fin­ery go­ing with­out putting out tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey as a form of in­vest­ment at a time of re­duced rev­enue, low cash­flow and high debt? Well, an in­vestor will be re­quired; but an in­vestor will on­ly take the risk if they can see prof­itabil­i­ty at some point and, ul­ti­mate­ly, a re­turn on in­vest­ment. That is why peo­ple in­vest in a busi­ness, to make a prof­it, to yield a re­turn.

I won­der if there is any pos­si­bil­i­ty of the gov­ern­ment of Guyana be­ing of­fered the re­fin­ery as is, for one dol­lar, so that they can re­plen­ish, re­ha­bil­i­tate, de­vel­op, re­new the re­fin­ery and de­sign a busi­ness mod­el to car­ry the re­fin­ery to prof­itabil­i­ty? Guyana has the oil, it is a cash-rich coun­try now, grow­ing at a rapid rate, and own­ing a re­fin­ery may make sense to that coun­try. I don’t re­al­ly know. More­over, Guyana is a neigh­bour and a Cari­com coun­try. Is this worth a se­ri­ous ef­fort?

There would be oth­er com­pli­ca­tions to work out. For in­stance, the OW­TU wants a share of own­er­ship. There are ways and means of work­ing that out, as can any oth­er com­pli­ca­tions that can arise in a busi­ness arrange­ment. The im­por­tant thing would be to work out a deal that would be of val­ue to both gov­ern­ments and coun­tries.

Syn­er­gies be­tween Guyana and T&T al­ready ex­ist and can on­ly deep­en if in­ten­si­fied by such an arrange­ment. This re­gion, de­spite our own lo­cal en­er­gy pro­duc­tion chal­lenges, is grow­ing in im­por­tance as an en­er­gy province. Guyana and T&T are sur­round­ed by Suri­name, French Guiana, Brazil, Colom­bia, Venezuela, Grena­da and Bar­ba­dos, all of which have re­al and po­ten­tial en­er­gy as­sets. T&T, in such an en­er­gy do­main, has a lot to of­fer in terms of ex­per­tise, com­pe­tence, know-how and ex­pe­ri­ence. Out of a deep­er Guyana/TT syn­er­gy, a lot of busi­ness, job and in­no­va­tion op­por­tu­ni­ties can ac­crue.

The prime min­is­ter has al­so ex­pressed wor­ry about the num­ber of state en­ter­pris­es that de­pend on con­tin­u­ing sub­si­dies from the tax­pay­er. A ten per cent cut to all state en­ter­pris­es will im­me­di­ate­ly re­duce gov­ern­ment ex­pen­di­ture and im­pose dis­ci­pline on state en­ter­prise man­age­ment and on new boards to be ap­point­ed. This can be sig­nalled in the mid-year re­view and giv­en ef­fect in the 2026 bud­get in Oc­to­ber.

More­over, the Gov­ern­ment could thought­ful­ly de­ter­mine which SOEs it wish­es to di­vest; and over the 2026 fis­cal year, it can iden­ti­fy four or five en­ti­ties for di­vest­ment. The di­vest­ment strat­e­gy can in­clude a range of forms of own­er­ship - lo­cal pri­vate sec­tor, for­eign pri­vate com­pa­nies, em­ploy­ee share own­er­ship and pub­lic of­fer­ings on the stock ex­change.

More dis­ci­plined and fo­cused state en­ter­pris­es, im­me­di­ate­ly less cost­ly to the tax­pay­er and a mean­ing­ful di­vest­ment to ease the tax­pay­er bur­den, will re­duce sub­sidy al­lo­ca­tions, in­crease pri­vate in­vest­ment and bring work­ers and cit­i­zens in­to own­er­ship of busi­ness­es. This is a de­sir­able track for this coun­try to pur­sue. Gov­ern­ment may al­so want to en­cour­age se­lect­ed pri­vate com­pa­nies to do the same, be­gin­ning with em­ploy­ee share own­er­ship ini­tia­tives. More cit­i­zens hav­ing a stake in busi­ness and, in the coun­try, will stim­u­late am­bi­tion, dri­ve pro­duc­tiv­i­ty up, and sup­port eco­nom­ic and po­lit­i­cal sta­bil­i­ty.

The Prime Min­is­ter has said Gov­ern­ment may not be able to ex­pand GATE. Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar is cor­rect. The coun­try just does not have the mon­ey. Al­though in­vest­ment in hu­man de­vel­op­ment is a good in­vest­ment with both pri­vate and pub­lic ben­e­fits, fam­i­lies and oth­er stake­hold­ers should share the cost. So­cial cap­i­tal is as im­por­tant as in­tel­lec­tu­al and skills cap­i­tal.

I sug­gest a re­ver­sion to the Dol­lar-for-Dol­lar Pro­gramme, which would sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duce ex­pen­di­ture on this item but al­so of­fer an in­cen­tive for those who want to pur­sue ed­u­ca­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties. More­over, the prin­ci­ple should be es­tab­lished that no one who wish­es to pur­sue ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion op­por­tu­ni­ties should be de­nied ac­cess be­cause of in­abil­i­ty to af­ford. Fi­nanc­ing arrange­ments could be worked through with the bank­ing and cred­it union sec­tors for stu­dent loans.

More­over, I sug­gest a mod­est grad­u­ate tax of two per cent of in­come or earn­ings for all grad­u­ates af­ter grad­u­a­tion, once they be­come in­come earn­ers, for a lim­it­ed du­ra­tion. This tax should be al­lo­cat­ed for ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion sup­port. That way, pub­lic ex­pen­di­ture ren­ders a pri­vate ben­e­fit to the young cit­i­zen and that pri­vate ben­e­fit then con­tributes to pub­lic good in the longer term.