He­len Dray­ton

“You can’t take de­trac­tors se­ri­ous­ly,” “mis­chief mak­ers.” Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has stood on both sides of the po­lit­i­cal di­vide, self-as­sured, tena­cious, un­hesi­tat­ing­ly blunt in re­spons­es to po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents, ca­reer de­trac­tors and crit­ics, and he couldn’t give a To­ba­go fig about po­lit­i­cal con­se­quences.

He has tak­en vi­cious blows, giv­ing back in equal mea­sure with­out miss­ing a steel­pan beat. Can­did and res­olute when it comes to the coun­try’s sov­er­eign­ty and neu­tral­i­ty, there was no mis­tak­ing his po­si­tion on any­thing. As Guyana Pres­i­dent Ir­faan Ali said in a trib­ute to him at the Bar­ba­dos Cari­com Con­fer­ence, “Don’t be car­ried away by the hard views … they were all geared to­ward the best in­ter­ests of the re­gion and to give us the best pos­si­ble re­sult.”

Pres­i­dent Ali in­ferred that sub­stance is what mat­tered, not form. Re­gion­al lead­ers un­der­stood him well.

“His love for the re­gion has dri­ven him to ex­cel,” said Bar­ba­dos PM Mia Mot­t­ley re­gard­ing his con­tri­bu­tion in 2019 when Cari­com lead­ers con­front­ed the Venezue­lan Madu­ra/Guai­do cri­sis. Putting prin­ci­ples be­fore ac­qui­es­cence on for­eign ge­o­log­i­cal agen­da, they opt­ed to me­di­ate for a peace­ful so­lu­tion.

“If ever there was a per­son that you would want at your side to fight any bat­tle, Kei­th Row­ley is one such per­son,” Mot­t­ley said. “He’s a states­man, com­mit­ted to mem­ber states and their as­pi­ra­tions.”

The “rock of Cari­com and a de­pend­able an­chor,” ac­cord­ing to the Ba­hamas PM, Philip Davis, who laud­ed his guid­ance to Cari­com in re­spond­ing to re­gion­al cli­mate change and the Venezuela/Guyana bor­der dis­pute. In 2020, as Cari­com chair, he reached out to Pres­i­dent Ir­faan Ali dur­ing Guyana’s elec­tion cri­sis. “His con­tri­bu­tion was enor­mous” at a time of great ten­sion for the rule of law and re­spect for elec­tion re­sults. “He made his way to Guyana; the rest is his­to­ry.”

Com­mend­ing his “abil­i­ty to nur­ture re­la­tion­ships,” Ja­maica’s PM An­drew Hol­ness said he met PM Row­ley when “T&T and Ja­maica re­la­tions were at an all-time low,” re­sult­ing from a re­mark in 2010 by his pre­de­ces­sor that “T&T is not an ATM card.”

“There were threats of boy­cott and block­ing cit­i­zens’ move­ments … To­day, the trade and move­ment of cit­i­zens be­tween the two coun­tries is bet­ter … I think the re­gion is bet­ter … He’s the epit­o­me of the Caribbean Man.”

Dr Kei­th Row­ley served our coun­try from 1981 to 2025, lead­ing the PNM to vic­to­ry in two con­sec­u­tive elec­tions, 2015 and 2020; he has the dis­tinc­tion of win­ning his seat in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives nine times and held the po­si­tions of Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture, Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment, Hous­ing, and Trade and In­dus­try, and was Leader of the Op­po­si­tion from 2010 to 2015.

He was al­so the rep­re­sen­ta­tive gov­er­nor of T&T for the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank and the Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank.

With his pre­de­ces­sors in Cab­i­net, he con­tributed to the de­vel­op­ment of crit­i­cal so­cial and eco­nom­ic ar­chi­tec­ture in­clud­ing hous­ing for thou­sands of cit­i­zens, the in­fra­struc­ture of roads, high­ways, ports and the en­er­gy sec­tor over his 44 years of ser­vice.

The PM leaves of­fice at a piv­otal time when post-World World War II ide­olo­gies and strate­gies are shift­ing un­der the weight of wars, geopo­lit­i­cal, eco­nom­ic, so­cial, tech­no­log­i­cal and en­vi­ron­men­tal pres­sures. Any ob­jec­tive as­sess­ment of his gov­ern­ment’s man­i­festo promis­es will re­veal gaps be­tween plans and ac­tu­al achieve­ments, es­pe­cial­ly as these re­late to the high crime rate, prob­lems in ed­u­ca­tion, util­i­ties, port in­ef­fi­cien­cy, pub­lic sec­tor in­ef­fi­cien­cy, and the dan­gers in­her­ent in un­der­de­vel­oped com­mu­ni­ties like Sea Lots, al­though sub­stan­tial in­vest­ments have gone in­to so­cial in­fra­struc­ture and hu­man de­vel­op­ment.

Among the sig­nif­i­cant achieve­ments were sourc­ing two streams of nat­ur­al gas for Pt Lisas and LNG Pt Fortin and suc­cess­ful­ly ne­go­ti­at­ing con­tracts for ac­cess to Venezuela’s Drag­on field gas. Al­so hold­ing pro­duc­tive talks in Wash­ing­ton to es­cape sanc­tions and ac­quire li­cences.

The agree­ments for the ex­plo­ration and pro­duc­tion of nat­ur­al gas by bp and the state-owned Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny to de­vel­op the Venezue­lan side of the Cocuina-Man­akin field and for Shell to progress the Man­a­tee/Lo­ran field were com­mend­able achieve­ments. Still, these cru­cial projects hang in the bal­ance, de­pend­ing on con­tin­ued US sup­port for ex­emp­tions from sanc­tions against Venezuela.

Petrotrin, a vir­tu­al ward of the Trea­sury, was re­struc­tured to stem tax­pay­er loss­es. The com­pa­ny’s rev­enues couldn’t sus­tain its in­creas­ing op­er­at­ing costs and high debt ser­vic­ing bur­den. The Gov­ern­ment carved out two new prof­itable en­ti­ties, Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um and Paria. Six years af­ter the de­ci­sion to close Petrotrin, a buy­er with ac­cess to crude sup­plies is ready to re­open the re­fin­ery.

It has been ten years of nav­i­gat­ing the coun­try’s busi­ness and fi­nan­cial af­fairs in a hos­tile glob­al en­vi­ron­ment. The Ukraine war gen­er­at­ed sup­ply chain dis­rup­tions and eco­nom­ic tur­bu­lence. We had to ral­ly through a per­fect storm of plum­met­ing gas prices, falling pro­duc­tion, and the COVID-19 cri­sis. No tem­plate ex­ist­ed for man­ag­ing the pan­dem­ic, the last one hav­ing oc­curred one hun­dred years be­fore.

The PM led de­ci­sive­ly, fol­lowed the sci­ence of the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion (WHO) and got vac­cines. Tough de­ci­sions were made to save lives, with in­evitable con­se­quences for the econ­o­my and ed­u­ca­tion. Gov­ern­ment shut down bor­ders, closed schools, cur­tailed busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ty, ran a par­al­lel health­care sys­tem and min­imised fi­nan­cial hard­ship for the most vul­ner­a­ble. The coun­try re­mained sta­ble in the face of daunt­ing shocks and home­grown crime. Its re­silience was re­mark­able.

Ac­cord­ing to the IMF re­port of May 2024, T&T is on a tra­jec­to­ry of eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery for the first time in a decade. GDP ex­pand­ed with a strong per­for­mance in the non-en­er­gy sec­tor, in­fla­tion be­low two per cent, growth in bank cred­it and a strong fi­nan­cial sys­tem.

The usu­al in­di­ca­tors of a coun­try’s per­for­mance, in­clud­ing pub­lic ex­pen­di­ture and debt ra­tios, in­ter­na­tion­al re­serve cov­er­age, and cur­rent ac­count sur­plus, ap­pear rea­son­ably sound. The GDP per capi­ta re­mains the high­est among many small and medi­um-sized coun­tries. The un­em­ploy­ment rate is be­low five per cent. Scarce for­eign ex­change re­mains a thorny is­sue, and eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion re­quires pro­duc­tive strate­gies.

Hos­pi­tals were built in Point Fortin, Ari­ma, San­gre Grande, Port-of-Spain, and To­ba­go. The new To­ba­go Air­port is in com­ple­tion. The Ma­yaro Road, the Mon De­sir In­ter­change, the Archibald DeLeon High­way, the Ma­yaro/Guayagua­yare Bridge, and the Diego Mar­tin Ex­change were al­so com­plet­ed. There are new fish­ing fa­cil­i­ties in Moru­ga and Care­nage.

The eco­nom­ic in­fra­struc­ture ex­pand­ed to in­clude In­dus­tri­al Parks at Pt Fortin, Fac­to­ry Road, Moru­ga, and Phoenix Park. These are near­ly ful­ly oc­cu­pied. Eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion and de­vel­op­ment of the non-en­er­gy sec­tor have been a pri­or­i­ty.

New ex­port boost­er strate­gies, in­clud­ing Trade Fa­cil­i­ta­tion of­fices, trade at­tachés, mar­ket in­tel­li­gence, in­ter­na­tion­al and vir­tu­al trade mis­sions, and in-mar­ket pro­mo­tions, have sup­port­ed the busi­ness sec­tor. Non-en­er­gy ex­ports grew by TT $3.7 bil­lion (9.6 bil­lion to 13.3 bil­lion) from 2016-2023. The ease of do­ing busi­ness has im­proved with TTBiz Link plat­forms, elim­i­nat­ing the time wast­ed on man­u­al trans­ac­tions. In­ter-is­land fer­ry trans­port has im­proved since the dis­as­trous ser­vice of 2016/2017.

The Ho­n­ourable Dr Kei­th Christo­pher Row­ley has served us well for over four decades with com­mit­ment and ded­i­ca­tion. It’s safe to say there isn’t a leader, any­where, who has had a per­fect tour of du­ty, ful­fill­ing all elec­tion promis­es and not run­ning afoul of their po­lit­i­cal­ly di­vid­ed coun­try at one time or the oth­er. He has con­tributed con­sid­er­ably to our growth, de­vel­op­ment, and suc­cess­es. I thank him for his ser­vice and wish him and his fam­i­ly peace and hap­pi­ness.