Raphael John-Lall

Econ­o­mist Dr Ronald Ramkissoon be­lieves that lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form should not be on­ly be about po­lit­i­cal re­form, but it should al­so be about eco­nom­ic re­forms at the com­mu­ni­ty lev­el.

He said there is po­ten­tial to de­vel­op new in­dus­tries at the lo­cal com­mu­ni­ty lev­el and pro­vide much need­ed em­ploy­ment.

“What is the po­ten­tial of the var­i­ous ar­eas in terms of eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty? And im­me­di­ate­ly we be­gin to see that there are parts of Trinidad and al­so To­ba­go that might have cer­tain com­par­a­tive ad­van­tages, to use an eco­nom­ic term. Some ar­eas might be bet­ter at mu­sic, whether it is Parang in Paramin or pan in Laven­tille or Chut­ney in Fyz­abad. Then there’s agri­cul­ture, where best do we pro­duce fruits? For ex­am­ple, man­goes start bear­ing in dif­fer­ent parts of T&T at dif­fer­ent times. What eco­nom­ic po­ten­tial do the var­i­ous dis­tricts hold for de­vel­op­ing man­go fes­ti­vals,” Ramkissoon told the Busi­ness Guardian.

Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions will be held in Trinidad on Au­gust 14 and Ramkissoon dis­cussed some of the eco­nom­ic is­sues that are rel­e­vant at the lo­cal gov­ern­ment lev­el.

He said dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ties can use cul­tur­al plat­forms to at­tract both lo­cals and for­eign­ers and use this as an en­gine for eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment.

“There is the cre­ative arts sec­tor. What her­itage sites are there and how do we de­vel­op them to at­tract peo­ple at dif­fer­ent times of the year in­to the var­i­ous ar­eas to stay in Ma­yaro which is cry­ing out for at­ten­tion. So, we get in­to tourism. If we think about food, where are the best pastelles done? Where is the best bread oven or best fried fish found?

“These are not new ideas and they are not new in­dus­tries to start off but they are bud­ding or al­ready ex­ist­ing ac­tiv­i­ties across T&T which every so of­ten you would see dif­fer­ent ar­eas hav­ing dif­fer­ent ac­tiv­i­ties. The po­ten­tial for de­vel­op­ing them is mas­sive, not on­ly for lo­cal tourists but for for­eign tourists.”

While there has been much con­tro­ver­sy over the soon-to-be im­ple­ment­ed prop­er­ty tax, Ramkissoon blunt­ly said that in any econ­o­my, col­lect­ing tax­es adds much need­ed rev­enue to a gov­ern­ment’s cof­fers.

“There was an agree­ment by the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion, and the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion as well, in a sense that there is ab­solute­ly noth­ing wrong but some­thing pos­i­tive about each com­mu­ni­ty con­tribut­ing to the kinds of eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ties we have been speak­ing about in terms of in­fra­struc­ture and in terms of the po­ten­tial for eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment,” said Ramkissoon.

“So, the prop­er­ty tax, call it what­ev­er name you want, if you take the pol­i­tics out of it, you see the ben­e­fit of a con­tri­bu­tion at the re­gion­al lev­el where peo­ple con­tribute and the mon­ey goes to­wards the eco­nom­ic and so­cial de­vel­op­ment of the par­tic­u­lar ar­eas.”

He al­so said that it is a mis­con­cep­tion that peo­ple don’t want to pay the prop­er­ty tax or oth­er tax­es as cit­i­zens are ma­ture enough to un­der­stand how it con­tributes to the Gov­ern­ment’s fi­nances.

“Peo­ple will want to. Of course, they will want to see the ben­e­fits of it and we un­der­stand that. So we were speak­ing about the prop­er­ty tax when the oil prices were much high­er, so the point is rev­enue will al­ways be a con­straint and whether we have a lot of it or we have less of it, we will al­ways have that kind of an is­sue. It is what you do with what you have and how ef­fi­cient­ly you do things. It is about how peo­ple have a re­gion­al and na­tion­al con­ver­sa­tion as to what are the pri­or­i­ties. If you look at fund­ing in­vest­ment in lo­cal ar­eas for eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment, then I think there will be a buy in.”

Giv­en the chal­lenges in the ar­eas of crime, the econ­o­my and in­fra­struc­ture, Ramkissoon said it is clear that cit­i­zens are clam­our­ing for lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form.

“In the ar­eas, in the vil­lages, in the streets in which we live, there’s much more to be done and much more can be done. This is in re­spect of in­fra­struc­ture and in terms of the ser­vices in gen­er­al. We can spread it to schools, po­lice sta­tions and health. Across the board, there seems to be a strong case for lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form.”

To get around these prob­lems, he sug­gest­ed that de­cen­tral­i­sa­tion should be an im­por­tant part of lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form.

“Each area will be unique and I think we ac­cept the view that hav­ing one of­fice in Port-of-Spain or San Fer­nan­do, they may not al­ways be up to date with what’s hap­pen­ing in these in­di­vid­ual ar­eas. It is when you live in a par­tic­u­lar area, you wit­ness what the chal­lenges are. If it is done prop­er­ly, we will find a bet­ter de­liv­ery of ser­vices which when you put it all to­geth­er would mean a bet­ter coun­try as a whole.”

He hopes that both the Gov­ern­ment and the rest of the coun­try takes lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form “much more se­ri­ous­ly” than it has in the past.

“There are ideas and ac­tiv­i­ties on the ground wait­ing to be de­vel­oped.”