Raphael John-Lall

Come Tues­day, one of the im­me­di­ate tasks of the new gov­ern­ment will be eco­nom­ic man­age­ment of the coun­try.

The Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian field­ed com­ments from se­nior econ­o­mist Dr Ronald Ramkissoon, for­mer trade min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath and crim­i­nol­o­gist Dau­rius Figueira on how the fresh ad­min­is­tra­tion can start lay­ing the foun­da­tion to ad­dress the coun­try’s press­ing eco­nom­ic and so­cial prob­lems as soon as the dust set­tles af­ter the elec­tion re­sults are called on Mon­day night.

Ramkissoon said he re­mains op­ti­mistic that whichev­er par­ty as­sumes of­fice, would have the tools to con­tin­ue work to build the econ­o­my.

“We are not with­out re­sources. The Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund (HSF) has $5 bil­lion. There are al­so six months of im­port cov­er. T&T has space for fu­ture bor­row­ing. T&T al­so has in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners. Al­so, the coun­try has young peo­ple with bright ideas.

“We must en­cour­age For­eign Di­rect In­vest­ment (FDI) from abroad and al­so cre­ate an at­trac­tive in­vest­ment cli­mate to get lo­cals who are abroad to bring mon­ey back in­to the coun­try,” he said.

In terms of the ad­min­is­tra­tive as­pect of the next gov­ern­ment, he said it must move quick­ly in ap­point­ing min­is­ters in crit­i­cal min­istries.

First­ly, Ramkissoon ad­vised the new gov­ern­ment to do an as­sess­ment of where T&T cur­rent­ly stands and de­ter­mine the port­fo­lios in ar­eas like crime, the econ­o­my and for­eign re­la­tions and get a han­dle on what as­pects must be tack­led.

“They (the new gov­ern­ment) will need to iden­ti­fy the re­sources they have in terms of peo­ple and the best peo­ple for the po­si­tions,” he said, not­ing that each gov­ern­ment min­istry in­clud­ing a key one like the Min­istry of Fi­nance has a per­ma­nent sec­re­tary who pro­vides guid­ance to in­com­ing min­is­ters to en­sure an easy tran­si­tion.

“When they match chal­lenges with hu­man re­sources, they will need to give close at­ten­tion to on­go­ing is­sues like crime, eco­nom­ic growth, earn­ing forex, is­sues that have been with us for some time,” Ramkissoon added.

Mean­while, Bharath not­ed that giv­en the chal­lenges of the lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al cli­mate, no time must be wast­ed when the next gov­ern­ment gets down to busi­ness.

“The world has shift­ed. The re-emer­gence of US-Venezuela ten­sions, shift­ing hemi­spher­ic pri­or­i­ties un­der Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump and re­gion­al and glob­al in­sta­bil­i­ty de­mand a gov­ern­ment pre­pared to act de­ci­sive­ly.

“The next gov­ern­ment can­not af­ford to stand on the side­lines and must be pre­pared to take ad­van­tage of op­por­tu­ni­ties ei­ther cre­at­ed or that present them­selves,” he said.

To do this, he urged the in­com­ing gov­ern­ment to an­nounce the key min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lios of fi­nance, trade, en­er­gy, for­eign af­fairs and agri­cul­ture quick­ly, stress­ing that these must be filled by peo­ple of cred­i­bil­i­ty and com­pe­tence who would give the pop­u­la­tion a sense of com­fort that plat­form promis­es could in­deed be met.

Bharath al­so list­ed the pri­or­i­ty ar­eas he be­lieved must be ad­dressed; the first he said is pub­lic safe­ty and crime re­duc­tion.

He said 2024 saw a record-high mur­der toll (623) with 42 per cent linked to gang-re­lat­ed vi­o­lence, adding that the coun­try’s wors­en­ing homi­cide rate has erod­ed pub­lic con­fi­dence and threat­ens na­tion­al sta­bil­i­ty; se­cu­ri­ty re­mains non-ne­go­tiable.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Bharath ad­vised the new gov­ern­ment to im­ple­ment eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion be­yond a hy­dro­car­bons-based econ­o­my.

“The 2015 to 2025 na­tion­al bud­gets un­der­scored the ur­gency of broad­en­ing rev­enue streams by bol­ster­ing tourism, agri­cul­ture and non-en­er­gy man­u­fac­tur­ing as foun­da­tions for sus­tain­able growth,” he said.

FDI in agro-pro­cess­ing and clean en­er­gy (eg so­lar pan­el man­u­fac­tur­ing), and po­si­tion­ing T&T as a hub for re­gion­al med­ical tourism should be en­cour­aged, Bharath added.

“Align trade pol­i­cy with mar­kets less vul­ner­a­ble to US pol­i­cy, par­tic­u­lar­ly Latin Amer­i­ca, West Africa, and In­dia. How­ev­er, the gov­ern­ment al­so needs to fast-track up­stream gas pro­duc­tion lo­cal­ly; re­open liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas (LNG) con­tract ne­go­ti­a­tions with glob­al buy­ers; deep­en bi­lat­er­al en­gage­ment with Guyana and Suri­name on shared en­er­gy and port in­fra­struc­ture; and ini­ti­ate re­gion­al di­a­logue via Cari­com to buffer against fu­ture geopo­lit­i­cal dis­rup­tions,” he fur­ther stat­ed.

Bharath be­lieved that in the ab­sence of en­er­gy wind­falls, growth must be dri­ven by in­dus­try and ex­ports.

He added that trade fa­cil­i­ta­tion and dig­i­tal econ­o­my ef­fi­cien­cy, trans­paren­cy and tech­nol­o­gy are al­so the cor­ner­stones of na­tion­al com­pet­i­tive­ness.

“The fresh­ly launched na­tion­al e-com­merce strat­e­gy 2025 to 2030 pro­vides a blue­print to boost SME ex­ports and widen ac­cess to glob­al dig­i­tal mar­kets - an op­por­tu­ni­ty to tur­bo-charge small-busi­ness growth. “Gov­ern­ment needs to fast-track a one-stop dig­i­tal por­tal for trade doc­u­men­ta­tion, roll out tar­get­ed train­ing grants for ex­porters, and part­ner with fin­tech firms to ex­pand se­cure e-pay­ment net­works,” Bharath said.

He added that pub­lic sec­tor re­form and the ease of do­ing busi­ness must al­so be placed high on the agen­da of the next gov­ern­ment.

“The gov­ern­ment needs to re­con­sti­tute the na­tion­al com­pet­i­tive­ness coun­cil, fast-track digi­ti­sa­tion of per­mits/li­cens­es, con­sol­i­date over­lap­ping agen­cies and en­force spend­ing dis­ci­pline across state-owned en­ter­pris­es,” he fur­ther sug­gest­ed.

Fi­nal­ly, he called for the re­vival of agri­cul­tur­al and food se­cu­ri­ty which he stat­ed must be the cor­ner­stone of the next gov­ern­ment’s pol­i­cy.

Figueira, a crim­i­nol­o­gist and au­thor, who has writ­ten sev­er­al books in­clud­ing, T&T’s en­er­gy and eco­nom­ic re­la­tion­ship with Venezuela rec­om­mend­ed that the next gov­ern­ment ought to re­think the en­tire foun­da­tion of T&T’s eco­nom­ic and so­cial or­der.

He urged the busi­ness sec­tor and oth­er stake­hold­ers to get T&T ready for the fourth in­dus­tri­al rev­o­lu­tion that has al­ready be­gun to sweep the world.

“The press­ing so­cial prob­lems of T&T and the in­ter­ven­tion to mit­i­gate them must be placed with­in the con­text of a new, rel­e­vant mod­el of de­vel­op­ment fit for pur­pose with­in the con­text of the fourth in­dus­tri­al rev­o­lu­tion of the 21st cen­tu­ry.

“It is on­ly with­in the con­text of sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment dri­ven by in­no­va­tion can we mit­i­gate the press­ing so­cial prob­lems of gen­er­at­ing in­come and wealth for the pros­per­i­ty of all there­by up­lift­ing the well-be­ing of the so­cial or­der which im­pacts the ef­fec­tive mit­i­ga­tion of all so­cial prob­lems,” Figueira ex­plained.

He fur­ther ad­vised that to solve so­cial prob­lems like crime, the next gov­ern­ment must de­vel­op a new eco­nom­ic mod­el.

“We can­not mit­i­gate un­der­de­vel­op­ment, the plight of the work­ing poor, the sin­gle fe­male par­ent house­holds, the chron­i­cal­ly un­em­ployed, the un­der­class of the mar­gin­alised spaces, the en­dem­ic reck­less be­hav­iour that per­vades the so­cial or­der along with en­dem­ic gun vi­o­lence with­out a mod­el of de­vel­op­ment that places pros­per­i­ty with­in the grasp of all cit­i­zens of T&T, mo­ti­vat­ing them with cer­tain re­ward to work for it, to achieve it,” he said.

Figueira added that in such an “eco-sys­tem the mit­i­ga­tion of press­ing so­cial prob­lems now be­come at­tain­able.

“This new mod­el of de­vel­op­ment has then to be pulled by a new rel­e­vant lo­co­mo­tive of a po­lit­i­cal sys­tem that is now or­gan­ic to the needs of the peo­ple and the im­per­a­tive of cre­at­ing a new so­cial or­der, a new T&T rel­e­vant to the 21st cen­tu­ry,” he em­pha­sised.