RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) leader Gary Grif­fith has re­newed his call for na­tion­al uni­ty, say­ing T&T must free it­self from a state of “hope­less­ness” and po­lit­i­cal en­mi­ty.

In his ad­dress at an NTA pub­lic meet­ing in San­gre Grande on Wednes­day night, Grif­fith said he planned to re­store pub­lic safe­ty when his par­ty takes of­fice.

“The NTA pro­pos­es en­hanc­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty through da­ta-dri­ven crime pre­ven­tion, mod­ernised law en­force­ment, and tar­get­ed in­ter­ven­tion pro­grammes for at-risk youth.

“The plan al­so in­cludes bor­der se­cu­ri­ty up­grades, na­tion­al cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty in­fra­struc­ture, ex­pand­ed foren­sic ca­pa­bil­i­ties and re­form of the ju­di­cial sys­tem to re­duce case back­logs,” he said.

Pro­grammes for do­mes­tic vi­o­lence pro­tec­tion, of­fend­er re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion, and in­tel­li­gence shar­ing among na­tion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al law en­force­ment agen­cies were al­so out­lined in the roadmap along with com­mu­ni­ty-based polic­ing.

Grif­fith al­so chas­tised Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

“You love some­one but if they de­cide to leave your par­ty and go else­where they are called neemakharam (un­grate­ful) dis­si­dents. My best friends are PNM and UNC. I se­lect friends based on who I can be­lieve in. You should not cause hate for some­one be­cause they have a dif­fer­ent po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion,” he said.

Grif­fith ex­plained that the NTA’s roadmap moves away from “tra­di­tion­al short-term po­lit­i­cal man­i­festos” and of­fers a uni­fied, long-term na­tion­al vi­sion.

“En­vi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty has emerged as a crit­i­cal pri­or­i­ty giv­en the glob­al cli­mate cri­sis. As a coun­try with rich nat­ur­al en­dow­ments, we face the dual chal­lenge of har­ness­ing these re­sources for eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment while en­sur­ing their long-term preser­va­tion for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions. This strate­gic plan places a strong em­pha­sis on bal­anc­ing eco­nom­ic growth with re­spon­si­ble en­vi­ron­men­tal stew­ard­ship,” he said.

He added that the NTA’s In­te­grat­ed Na­tion­al Strate­gic Plan was not sim­ply the­o­ret­i­cal but a call to ac­tion for stake­hold­ers, pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tor, civ­il so­ci­ety, and cit­i­zens.

He not­ed that the NTA’s eco­nom­ic trans­for­ma­tion strat­e­gy in­cludes sig­nif­i­cant in­vest­ment in sec­tors be­yond oil and gas.

“These in­clude tech­nol­o­gy, agri­cul­ture, tourism, re­new­able en­er­gy, and the cre­ative in­dus­tries. The par­ty’s plan pri­ori­tis­es the de­vel­op­ment of small and medi­um en­ter­pris­es (SMEs), im­prov­ing the ease of do­ing busi­ness, and form­ing pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships to fos­ter in­no­va­tion and em­ploy­ment,” he point­ed out.

The roadmap al­so out­lines sup­port for the green, blue, and or­ange economies—pro­mot­ing sus­tain­able ma­rine in­dus­tries, eco-tourism, and cre­ative arts as av­enues for na­tion­al growth.

It in­cludes sup­port for farm­ers to adopt sus­tain­able farm­ing tech­niques such as crop ro­ta­tion, or­gan­ic farm­ing, agro­forestry, and wa­ter-ef­fi­cient ir­ri­ga­tion to main­tain soil fer­til­i­ty and re­duce land degra­da­tion.

The NTA al­so plans to in­vest in restora­tion of ecosys­tems, crit­i­cal for coastal pro­tec­tion, bio­di­ver­si­ty and fish breed­ing grounds.

Grif­fith em­pha­sised the need for in­sti­tu­tion­al trans­paren­cy and ef­fi­cien­cy and said the NTA plans to re­view and en­force zon­ing laws to en­sure prop­er al­lo­ca­tion of land for agri­cul­ture, in­dus­try, hous­ing, and con­ser­va­tion to avoid con­flicts and over­ex­ploita­tion.

The LAMMP mod­el—Lead­er­ship, Ac­count­abil­i­ty, Man­age­ment, and Mea­sure­ment of Per­for­mance—will guide all gov­er­nance ini­tia­tives un­der the NTA, he said.

“We aim to pos­i­tive­ly trans­form the bro­ken un­der­ly­ing struc­tures and process­es that have caused Trinidad and To­ba­go and its peo­ple to spi­ral down­ward in­to a seem­ing­ly hope­less state.”

Grif­fith said the NTA al­so com­mits to mod­ernising in­fra­struc­ture through digi­ti­sa­tion, in­clud­ing blockchain tech­nol­o­gy in pub­lic ser­vices, na­tion­wide dig­i­tal IDs, telemed­i­cine, smart city ini­tia­tives, and na­tion­al e-gov­er­nance plat­forms.

Apart from pro­mot­ing na­tion­al pride, youth em­pow­er­ment, men­tal health ser­vices, and so­cial eq­ui­ty, the na­tion­al roadmap aims to strength­en fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties as a means of crime re­duc­tion and eco­nom­ic progress.

Com­ment­ing on the NTA’s plan, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed said while it was an ex­cel­lent doc­u­ment with long-term goals, it did not show how the goals would be achieved in the short and medi­um term.

“There are gaps that have not been ad­dressed. The eight-point strat­e­gy is good, mod­ern, but it must be re­al­is­tic and should en­sure short, medi­um and long-term goals that need to be de­liv­ered to im­prove the lives of cit­i­zens.

“Some of these points are a con­tin­u­a­tion of what al­ready ex­ists in oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties. My main ques­tion is how these goals will be achieved and to what end,” he said.