To­ba­go’s two seats—To­ba­go East and To­ba­go West—can po­ten­tial­ly have a sig­nif­i­cant im­pact on the out­come of the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion.

With the ma­jor par­ties—the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) pre­sent­ing their re­spec­tive man­i­festos to per­suade the pop­u­lace, econ­o­mist Dr Vanus James be­lieves that the ap­pro­pri­ate place to ex­am­ine these 2025 elec­tion man­i­festos starts with the record of per­for­mance of the in­cum­bents dur­ing their tenure.

He said this was best done us­ing the re­al GDP per capi­ta be­cause it de­fined the stan­dard of liv­ing cre­at­ed by the pro­duc­tiv­i­ty of the econ­o­my achieved on their watch.

James not­ed in the case of T&T, the gen­er­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the na­tion­al in­cum­bents, the re­al GDP per capi­ta de­clined by 23 per cent from US$18,781 in 2015 to US$14,491 in 2023, con­tin­u­ing in­to 2024 and 2025.

He said in the case of the To­ba­go econ­o­my, main­ly man­aged by the PNM up to 2021 and by the Far­ley Au­gus­tine regime since then, the re­al GDP per capi­ta al­so de­clined by 23 per cent, from US$4,631 in 2015 to US$3,583 in 2023.

In the pe­ri­od since 2021 it de­clined by 1.1 per cent over­all and con­tin­ued to de­cline in 2024, James added.

“This record is stu­dious­ly ig­nored in the PNM’s man­i­festo, along with the on­go­ing for­eign ex­change cri­sis, the col­lapse of the en­er­gy sec­tor and oil prices, the threat of glob­al re­ces­sion caused by Trump’s tar­iffs, and the surge in crime.

“The man­i­festo al­so stu­dious­ly ig­nores what all that por­tends for im­pend­ing econ­o­my-wide cri­sis and the ba­sic strat­e­gy need­ed to suc­ceed in the com­pe­ti­tion for pros­per­i­ty in the glob­al geo-eco­nom­ic space,” James said.

He said it was al­so quite in­ter­est­ing that the record was al­so ig­nored in the UNC’s man­i­festo.

James fur­ther stat­ed that the record of eco­nom­ic col­lapse was pro­duced by closed and au­thor­i­tar­i­an gov­ern­ments in To­ba­go as well as in Trinidad.

“In Trinidad, this was ac­com­pa­nied by pre­oc­cu­pa­tion with op­er­at­ing a high­ly vul­ner­a­ble en­er­gy-based econ­o­my, com­ple­ment­ed by glob­al­ly un­com­pet­i­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing of con­sumer prod­ucts for ex­port, es­pe­cial­ly food and bev­er­ages, and by short-stay beach tourism and sin­gle-sea­son Car­ni­val events.

“In To­ba­go, it was ac­com­pa­nied by ob­ses­sive em­brace of a gov­ern­ment-de­pen­dent econ­o­my along with ef­forts to repli­cate the short-stay tourism and sea­son­al car­ni­val events mod­el of Trinidad,” he ex­plained.

He not­ed that in T&T since 1970, that strat­e­gy has pro­duced lit­tle growth with no de­vel­op­ment im­pact and that this, based on an elas­tic­i­ty of -.22 for tourism-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ties and a mod­est­ly larg­er elas­tic­i­ty of -.28 for the com­bi­na­tion of en­er­gy and man­u­fac­tur­ing of con­sumer prod­ucts, dom­i­nat­ed by the build-up of US ad­van­tage with an elas­tic­i­ty of 0.82.

PNM man­i­festo promis­es to To­ba­go

James added that the on­ly “cred­i­ble read­ing” of the PNM’s man­i­festo was that this “record of dis­mal eco­nom­ic fail­ure should be ig­nored.”

In­stead, it sug­gest­ed that so­ci­ety should em­brace the pub­lic re­la­tions pre­sent­ing promised out­comes with­out meth­ods and urg­ing a new start on that ba­sis.

“It is as if the new PM and team were not lead­ers in the gov­ern­ment and re­spon­si­ble for its per­for­mance in the last ten years. It is al­so as if the new lead­ers have just seen a new light not avail­able to them from 2015 to 2025,” James added.

He said the main pro­pos­al for a new start made by the PNM was to ”ad­vance con­sti­tu­tion­al and leg­isla­tive au­ton­o­my for To­ba­go,” not­ing that the sug­gest­ed mean­ing of that com­mit­ment was ‘con­tin­ue to pur­sue leg­isla­tive re­form that recog­nis­es and pro­tects To­ba­go’s au­ton­o­my, guid­ed by con­sul­ta­tion with To­bag­o­ni­ans and col­lab­o­ra­tion with the THA’.

He said a re­lat­ed pro­pos­al was com­mu­ni­ty em­pow­er­ment mean­ing “sup­port lo­cal en­ter­prise, mi­crobusi­ness­es, and com­mu­ni­ty-led de­vel­op­ment to en­sure that growth reach­es every re­gion and every cit­i­zen” that is achieved “through more tech­nol­o­gy-en­abled polic­ing, stronger leg­isla­tive pro­tec­tion, im­proved in­ter-agency co­or­di­na­tion, com­mu­ni­ty-led crime pre­ven­tion, and cit­i­zen-re­spon­sive jus­tice re­form that de­liv­ers safe­ty, fair­ness, and dig­ni­ty for every per­son.”

James said it was in­ter­est­ing that these pro­pos­als were ad­vanced with ref­er­ence to a “bound­ary-less To­ba­go or Trinidad.”

“The promise rings hol­low in the con­text of 70 years of PNM prac­tice of in­sist­ing on an ex­ec­u­tive mod­el of gov­ern­ment, which in­clud­ed dis­man­tling of lo­cal and com­mu­ni­ty gov­ern­ment,” he added.

Fur­ther, the se­nior econ­o­mist said there was no recog­ni­tion that con­sul­ta­tion re­quired a sys­tem of gov­ern­ment de­signed with arrange­ments for ef­fec­tive over­sight of the ex­ec­u­tive func­tion in both To­ba­go and Trinidad; no recog­ni­tion that au­ton­o­my for To­ba­go can­not be de­liv­ered with­out na­tion­al con­sti­tu­tion re­form; no recog­ni­tion that au­ton­o­my can­not be de­liv­ered by the failed pro­pos­als put be­fore the last two par­lia­ments.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, James said there was no recog­ni­tion that the re­al mean­ing of au­ton­o­my in­volved:

• End­ing the au­thor­i­tar­i­an ex­ec­u­tive de­sign of the THA by in­tro­duc­ing pro­vi­sions for leg­isla­tive over­sight of the ex­ec­u­tive coun­cil.

• End­ing ex­ec­u­tive au­thor­i­tar­i­an gov­ern­ment in Port of Spain.

• End­ing the un­rep­re­sen­ta­tive de­sign of the Sen­ate and in­tro­duc­ing an elect­ed Sen­ate de­signed to pro­tect the rights of To­bag­o­ni­ans and guar­an­tee equal­i­ty of sta­tus and equal­i­ty of ac­cess to de­vel­op­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties for To­ba­go.

*As­sign­ment of ap­pro­pri­ate me­di­an-line bound­aries for To­ba­go as well as Trinidad with a linked for­mu­la for shar­ing the coun­try’s an­nu­al cap­i­tal bud­get be­tween the is­lands.

With re­spect to com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment, the PNM pro­pos­es as fol­lows: “We will im­ple­ment a trans­for­ma­tive com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment mod­el for strate­gic and in­te­grat­ed com­mu­ni­ty trans­for­ma­tion, po­si­tion­ing pi­lot com­mu­ni­ties across Trinidad and To­ba­go as cen­tres of op­por­tu­ni­ty where na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment pri­or­i­ties are de­liv­ered in a co­or­di­nat­ed, cit­i­zen-fo­cused, and im­pact­ful way.”

Two To­ba­go com­mu­ni­ties are list­ed in its pi­lot pro­gramme: Canaan/Bon Ac­cord and Rox­bor­ough. How­ev­er, the en­tire in­tent is a Cab­i­net-led pro­gramme.

James said quite apart from the fact that the THA is cur­rent­ly legal­ly re­spon­si­ble for com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment in To­ba­go, there was no ref­er­ence to con­sti­tu­tion re­form to pro­vide for arrange­ments need­ed for com­mu­ni­ty lead­er­ship of de­vel­op­ment, and fa­cil­i­tat­ing crime pre­ven­tion, in­clud­ing any of the fol­low­ing ex­plic­it­ly sought by To­ba­go’s com­mu­ni­ties:

De­f­i­n­i­tion of all com­mu­ni­ties with bound­aries and cur­rent res­i­dents.

Spec­i­fi­ca­tion of the rights of the com­mu­ni­ties, in terms of:

1. Tak­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for com­mu­ni­ty eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment

2. Es­tab­lish­ment of in­clu­sive com­mu­ni­ty gov­ern­ment arrange­ments

3. A fair share of the na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment bud­get

4. An in­clu­sive and ful­ly rep­re­sen­ta­tive THA and na­tion­al gov­ern­ment, in­clud­ing an elect­ed Sen­ate, with prop­er mech­a­nisms for in­for­ma­tion shar­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

5. Right to an in­de­pen­dent ju­di­cia­ry free from ex­ec­u­tive in­ter­fer­ence and con­trol of leg­isla­tive in­tent, pri­mar­i­ly as­sured by an elect­ed Sen­ate.

UNC man­i­festo promis­es to To­ba­go

In look­ing at the UNC’s man­i­festo, James said the par­ty’s pro­pos­als on the To­ba­go econ­o­my could be de­scribed as “in­no­cent.”

“They are not root­ed in any ev­i­dence or in­ter­pre­ta­tion of per­ti­nent facts. They ig­nore the afore­men­tioned fact that the out­put per per­son of the To­ba­go econ­o­my de­clined by 23 per cent since 2015.

“The pro­pos­als ap­pear to have been pulled from thin air, yet the UNC’s part­ners in To­ba­go are the in­cum­bents of the THA whose mis­guid­ed poli­cies led to a col­lapse of the post-Covid To­ba­go econ­o­my af­ter the PNM start­ed a re­cov­ery in 2021,” James ex­plained.

As a re­sult, he said since 2021 the To­ba­go econ­o­my de­clined by 1.1 per cent un­der the cur­rent in­cum­bents and the cor­re­spond­ing de­cline of av­er­age month­ly in­comes by 1.1 per cent in 2023/24 demon­strat­ed that no course cor­rec­tion has been oc­cur­ring.

Pro­pos­al to cre­ate in­ter­na­tion­al cruise ship ma­ri­na

The UNC is propos­ing to con­struct a cruise/ma­ri­na com­plex in Ply­mouth, To­ba­go and in­clude fu­el bunker­ing, shop­ping, en­ter­tain­ment, and lo­cal brand pro­mo­tion.

It al­so wants to des­ig­nate To­ba­go as a du­ty-free port to stim­u­late re­tail and ser­vice en­tre­pre­neur­ship.

How­ev­er, James said it should be not­ed that To­ba­go’s best en­gi­neers with rel­e­vant ad­vanced train­ing in this field rec­om­mend that the best lo­ca­tion for any cruise/ma­ri­na in­ter­na­tion­al port com­plex is right next to the air­port at Kil­gwyn/Cove to take ad­van­tage of the avail­able syn­er­gies and clos­er prox­im­i­ty to the At­lantic cor­ri­dor.

He added that the UNC’s pro­pos­al demon­strat­ed the kind of pol­i­cy mis­takes that could be made when both pol­i­cy and law are made by the Cab­i­net, be­cause there is no sys­tem of leg­isla­tive over­sight in place that al­lows for full in­for­ma­tion shar­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tion with cit­i­zens.

“Lest the read­er be mis­led in­to think­ing that bunker­ing is some kind of high val­ue-added ac­tiv­i­ty that can bring pros­per­i­ty to To­ba­go, it is not­ed that bunker­ing is just the low val­ue-added ac­tiv­i­ty of sup­ply­ing fu­el (im­port­ed fu­el oil or gas oil in our case) to a ves­sel’s fu­el tank(s). And, no port fa­cil­i­ties are ab­solute­ly need­ed for this. It can be done on the sea, us­ing spe­cialised barges or tankers,” James fur­ther ex­plained.

He ad­vised that the ap­pro­pri­ate ap­proach to eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment in To­ba­go would re­quire more than a du­ty-free port.

It would re­quire the whole is­land to be a tax-free zone spe­cial­is­ing in the pro­duc­tion and ex­port of var­i­ous cap­i­tal ser­vices and op­er­at­ing as an ac­cel­er­a­tor for in­ter­na­tion­al en­tre­pre­neurs.