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Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Hard road map to chart say committee members

by

Shaliza Hassanali
1761 days ago
20200416
An elderly woman waits in line outside Scotiabank in Penal on Wednesday. Lines outside banks have been unduly long in recent times as customers have to observe social distancing measures.

An elderly woman waits in line outside Scotiabank in Penal on Wednesday. Lines outside banks have been unduly long in recent times as customers have to observe social distancing measures.

RISHI RAGOONATH

SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Some mem­bers of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s new­ly-es­tab­lished spe­cial com­mit­tee to chart a re­cov­ery road map for T&T post-COVID-19, see their task ahead as a chal­leng­ing and en­ter­ing new ter­ri­to­ry.

The com­mit­tee, head­ed by Row­ley, com­pris­es 20 oth­er mem­bers who have ex­per­tise in var­i­ous skillsets such as fi­nance, bank­ing, labour, busi­ness, trade and en­er­gy.

Among those hand­picked by the PM was Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion Min­is­ter Alyson West, who said the com­mit­tee was yet to meet and de­cide how they would move for­ward.

“We know we have a tough task ahead, but in my view, Trinidad is in a place it has nev­er been be­fore. We need to think broad­ly and try to come up with a so­lu­tion that is all-en­com­pass­ing.”

West said they will have to ex­am­ine how the econ­o­my was op­er­at­ing be­fore and what would now need to be done for sur­vival af­ter this cri­sis.

“We have to make our­selves more self-suf­fi­cient and re­silient to deal with chal­lenges go­ing for­ward. I know we will put our best foot for­ward,” West told the T&t Guardian.

Food re­place­ment, de­pen­den­cy on en­er­gy, di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, new sources of for­eign in­come gen­er­a­tion, re­duc­ing un­nec­es­sary pur­chas­es and sav­ings on for­eign ex­change are some of the things West said the com­mit­tee would have to ex­plore and ex­am­ine. She did not dis­count that the task ahead will be chal­leng­ing.

“It will be be­cause we have to try and save T&T in the con­text of the whole world deal­ing with chal­lenges, so we have to go for­ward with the as­sump­tion that we can’t re­ly on oth­ers to help. It is go­ing to be a chal­leng­ing task but in­ter­est­ing.”

She al­so be­lieves the PM has cho­sen a high-cal­i­bre team who will de­liv­er.

“It has to be a col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­fort. It can’t be a dic­tate be­ing pushed down to the peo­ple.”

For­mer T&T Port Au­thor­i­ty chair Al­li­son Lewis, one of three women on the com­mit­tee, said it will be a great op­por­tu­ni­ty to serve the coun­try once more.

“I look for­ward to serv­ing the com­mit­tee. Of course, it’s go­ing to be chal­leng­ing but the thing about it is that every­one on the com­mit­tee has faced chal­lenges in the past one way or the oth­er...per­son­al­ly and na­tion­al­ly.”

Lewis said she has no doubt every­one will have their heart in the right place to do what is best for the coun­try.

Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (Natuc) gen­er­al sec­re­tary Michael An­nisette, who will rep­re­sent the trade union move­ment, said he’d asked the Gov­ern­ment to es­tab­lish a com­mit­tee of stake­hold­ers to deal with the fall­out of the pan­dem­ic since Jan­u­ary but it was ig­nored.

“It was some­thing we were al­ways sup­port­ive of. It is bet­ter late than nev­er. There are times when dif­fer­ences must be put on the back burn­er,” he said, promis­ing Natuc will re­main com­mit­ted to the peo­ple of T&T.

An­nisette said the coun­try will be chart­ing new ter­ri­to­ry when this cri­sis is over and every­one will have to think out­side of the box.

“We need to put our col­lec­tive wis­dom to­geth­er. I know we can come up with sol­id so­lu­tions.”

While ad­mit­ting many peo­ple have been put on the bread­line as a re­sult of the pan­dem­ic, An­nisette said T&T has “fall­en down” in pro­vid­ing ac­cu­rate fig­ures in this re­gard and this has to be ad­dressed.

“We have to put coun­try first and for­get about rep­re­sent­ing con­stituen­cies. I be­lieve this pan­dem­ic is a bless­ing in dis­guise be­cause it will force us to think in new ways. Rather than crit­i­cise, now is the time to work in the best in­ter­est of T&T.”

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Robert Le Hunte said their work will be crit­i­cal.

“The work ahead will be no easy task. I don’t think we have ever been in this po­si­tion be­fore. When you look at it, we are deal­ing with two pan­demics...the one we are cur­rent­ly fac­ing and then there is the pan­dem­ic of the whole im­pact on the econ­o­my with re­gards to the falling oil prices.”

He said jump-start­ing a stag­nant econ­o­my would re­quire a team ef­fort and care­ful plan­ning, adding a lot of mon­ey was be­ing spent now by the Gov­ern­ment that was not bud­get­ed for.

He said the PM has set ag­gres­sive time­lines for the road map to be de­liv­ered.

“We need all hands on deck. It’s ex­cit­ing times and lots of work to be done.”

For­mer gov­er­nor of the Cen­tral Bank and gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an, who will bring his fi­nan­cial ex­per­tise to the com­mit­tee, said the coun­try was fac­ing its dark­est hour and a dif­fi­cult pe­ri­od “and it re­quires a Her­culean ef­fort to chart the path­way that will build con­fi­dence and sat­is­fy our peo­ple over time. So I see it as a huge chal­lenge for the com­mit­tee.”

COVID-19


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