Last Mon­day, one of the guests on Guardian Me­dia’s gen­er­al elec­tion night broad­cast, made a pre­dictable but nonethe­less sur­pris­ing at­tempt to fore­shad­ow the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion’s in­abil­i­ty to de­liv­er on the many promis­es it made dur­ing the cam­paign.

Speak­ing gen­er­al­ly about the econ­o­my over the next five years, econ­o­mist Dr In­dera Sage­wan, made the fol­low­ing point:

“I want to say there is the pol­i­tics and the elec­tion and then there is gov­er­nance. And I would say that what the UNC (Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress) has that the PNM (Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment) does not have, is that when they get in­to of­fice and they are con­front­ed with the re­al­i­ty—be­cause they don’t know the re­al­i­ty, they would on­ly be spec­u­lat­ing—so when they get in there and they see the re­al­i­ty, they can now hon­est­ly speak to the pop­u­la­tion. But more im­por­tant­ly, I think, there needs to be a very clear path­way to hope. And I be­lieve peo­ple need to un­der­stand the chal­lenges—be­cause there is no quick fix, there is no mag­ic bul­let—to have di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion hap­pen to­mor­row.”

Econ­o­mist Dr Mar­lene Attzs, an­oth­er guest on the pro­gramme, in­ter­vened to make the point that the UNC’s cam­paign promis­es had caused the pop­u­la­tion to have cer­tain ex­pec­ta­tions of how it would gov­ern. Those promis­es, Attzs added, in­clud­ed pub­lic sec­tor salary ne­go­ti­a­tions start­ing at 10 per cent, the elim­i­na­tion of the prop­er­ty tax and the can­cel­la­tion of the sev­en per cent on­line tax.

For Dr Sage­wan to ar­gue that the UNC in pow­er would be “con­front­ed with the re­al­i­ty,” of T&T’s eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion and would then be able to “hon­est­ly speak to the pop­u­la­tion,” is quite in­cred­i­ble.

For­mer Prime Min­is­ter, Stu­art Young, called the gen­er­al elec­tion on March 18; on March 27 the Cen­tral Bank pub­lished its Eco­nom­ic Dat­a­pack and on March 29, the pres­i­dent gen­er­al of the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion told a cheer­ing crowd in San­gre Grande that the UNC had giv­en a com­mit­ment to start ne­go­ti­a­tions with pub­lic sec­tor unions at 10 per cent.

One must as­sume that both Ms Thomas and the UNC would have known on March 29 that T&T col­lect­ed $47.5 bil­lion and spent $57.5 bil­lion in cal­en­dar 2024, as out­lined by the Cen­tral Bank. They would have known, there­fore, that the fis­cal deficit for 2024 was $10 bil­lion.

And they would have known that the gov­ern­ment col­lect­ed an es­ti­mat­ed $13.8 bil­lion in en­er­gy rev­enue for 2024, which was 29 per cent of to­tal rev­enues.

They would al­so have known that in 2023 rev­enue to­talled $52.5 bil­lion and en­er­gy rev­enue was $22.9 bil­lion, which was 43.6 per cent of to­tal rev­enues; and that en­er­gy rev­enues in 2024 were 39.7 per cent less than in 2023.

Is Dr Sage­wan sig­nalling a claw­ing back of the UNC cam­paign promis­es?

Why the PNM lost

It is my view that the im­me­di­ate cause of the crush­ing de­feat that the PNM suf­fered in Mon­day’s gen­er­al elec­tion took place on the af­ter­noon of No­vem­ber 28, 2024, when for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley ad­dressed a post-Cab­i­net news con­fer­ence.

At that news con­fer­ence, Dr Row­ley an­nounced he was rec­om­mend­ing to Cab­i­net that it ac­cept the rec­om­men­da­tions of the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion (SRC) to in­crease the com­pen­sa­tion pack­ages of the prime min­is­ter, pres­i­dent, the ju­di­cia­ry, se­nior pub­lic ser­vants and the en­tire man­age­ment struc­ture of the coun­try.

In ac­cept­ing the SRC re­port, Dr Row­ley ap­proved the in­crease in the salary of the prime min­is­ter of T&T from $59,680 a month to $80,000 a month, a hike of 34 per cent.

The Cab­i­net ac­cept­ed the SRC rec­om­men­da­tion to im­prove the salaries of Cab­i­net min­is­ters from $41,030 a month to $47,500 a month, an in­crease of $15.76 per cent.

In an­nounc­ing his ac­cep­tance of the SRC’s rec­om­men­da­tions, Dr Row­ley said, “...I take full re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for ad­vis­ing the Cab­i­net that af­ter 13 years of this work that the mem­bers of the Gov­ern­ment who run this coun­try, a $60 bil­lion en­ter­prise, that the ac­cep­tance of the SRC re­port is a mat­ter for the Cab­i­net and the Cab­i­net should have no dif­fi­cul­ty in con­clud­ing that mat­ter in the way that the Gov­ern­ment is now say­ing we will con­clude it. Is it that there those who be­lieve that the coun­try’s lead­er­ship is of no val­ue, pro­duces no val­ue and should be ashamed to ac­cept the rec­om­men­da­tions of a com­mis­sion whose job it is to have done the work...

“...To say that the coun­try can­not af­ford to rea­son­ably com­pen­sate its man­age­ment struc­ture is to make an ad­mis­sion that I don’t want to make, be­cause I don’t think that is a rea­son­able con­clu­sion.”

Dr Row­ley said he as­sumed that in do­ing its work, the SRC looked at is­sues raised by oth­er peo­ple in the coun­try.

He said the Cab­i­net’s ac­cep­tance of the rec­om­men­da­tions in the SRC re­port was a po­lit­i­cal is­sue, adding that ac­cep­tance has been, and will al­ways be, a po­lit­i­cal is­sue.

“And that is why to­day, for telling the coun­try that we will ac­cept the rec­om­men­da­tions, I am pre­pared to deal with it as a po­lit­i­cal is­sue be­cause it is a po­lit­i­cal is­sue and that is why I am not sur­prised that the Op­po­si­tion Leader is out of the blocks, try­ing to get a leg up in a po­lit­i­cal is­sue....

“We be­lieve that we bring val­ue, by work­ing hard, by work­ing hon­est­ly for the peo­ple of the coun­try. And the ben­e­fits are there for those who want to see the ben­e­fits. And that is where the po­lit­i­cal dis­cus­sion comes in. And that is why it is a po­lit­i­cal is­sue for those who want to dis­cuss it on a po­lit­i­cal plat­form. I am ready to do that.”

Asked by my Guardian Me­dia col­league, Akash Sama­roo, if the in­crease for the T&T prime min­is­ter was jus­ti­fi­able and fair, Dr Row­ley said the SRC is the body re­spon­si­ble to look at the com­pen­sa­tion pack­ages of the coun­try’s se­nior man­age­ment.

“I am sim­ply say­ing that I have ac­cept­ed the work that they have done. The rec­om­men­da­tions have come af­ter work I be­lieve is good work and I am pre­pared to ac­cept their work. And as far as I am con­cerned that is the end of the sto­ry,” said the for­mer prime min­is­ter.

Asked by Mr Sama­roo what mes­sage he had for the trade union move­ment, whose mem­bers were ask­ing the Gov­ern­ment for high­er salaries, Dr Row­ley said, “The mes­sage is that all of these mat­ters are part of com­part­ments of the Gov­ern­ment’s busi­ness and every sin­gle one of them would be dealt with un­der the arrange­ments to deal with it.

“I know that there are those who would want to con­flate them, and that is the pol­i­tics of it...”

Ques­tions

1) Af­ter in­sist­ing that he was pre­pared to deal with Cab­i­net’s ac­cep­tance of the SRC’s rec­om­men­da­tions as a po­lit­i­cal is­sue, did Dr Row­ley or the PNM spend enough time at­tempt­ing to jus­ti­fy the ac­cep­tance of the in­creas­es for se­nior pub­lic of­fi­cers, in­clud­ing the Cab­i­net, but not for all oth­er pub­lic of­fi­cers, who were of­fered 4 per cent, sev­en years ago and 5 per cent in the 2025 bud­get?

2) Did Dr Row­ley, or his suc­ces­sor Mr Young, out­line the to­tal ad­di­tion­al re­cur­rent cost to ad­dress the SRC’s rec­om­men­da­tions and con­trast that with the cost of ac­cept­ing the de­mands of trade unions for dou­ble-dig­it wage in­creas­es for pub­lic of­fi­cers, em­ploy­ees of state en­ter­pris­es and oth­ers paid by the State?

3) In say­ing that the mem­bers of Cab­i­net bring val­ue to T&T by work­ing hard and hon­est­ly, did Dr Row­ley un­der­stand that thou­sands of state em­ploy­ees al­so bring val­ue to the coun­try by work­ing hard, hon­est­ly and con­sci­en­tious­ly?

4) When the for­mer prime min­is­ter said the ben­e­fits of the pre­vi­ous Cab­i­net’s hard and hon­est work “are there for those who want to see the ben­e­fits,” is he aware that there are thou­sands of house­holds whose stan­dard of liv­ing would have de­clined since 2015 be­cause the in­crease in the cost of liv­ing would have out­paced any wage in­creas­es they re­ceived?

5) Did the PNM, on the cam­paign trail, spend enough time em­pha­sis­ing that the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion went to great lengths to mit­i­gate the de­cline in the stan­dard of liv­ing of a sig­nif­i­cant per­cent­age of the pop­u­la­tion?

6) Dur­ing the elec­tion cam­paign, did the PNM do enough to in­form the pop­u­la­tion that the rea­son for­mer Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, Colm Im­bert, did not dis­pense more largesse to the pop­u­la­tion was sim­ply be­cause the econ­o­my could not af­ford it?

7) Is the PNM sur­prised that much of its tra­di­tion­al sup­port, faced with a de­cline in their stan­dard of liv­ing, would have been en­ticed to switch al­le­giance or stay home on Mon­day, giv­en the promis­es of “ham, lamb and jam,” for the pop­u­la­tion made by the UNC?