Gail Alexan­der

Re­duce tax­es for cit­i­zens and busi­ness­es most af­fect­ed by the COVID-19 cri­sis, re­move VAT from ba­sic food items to help peo­ple re­gain their feet and restart the Guaracara re­fin­ery.

The rec­om­men­da­tions are among a five-pronged eco­nom­ic man­i­festo plan which the Op­po­si­tion has com­piled to re­store growth and trans­form T&T, post COVID-19.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who pre­sent­ed the plan yes­ter­day, is of­fer­ing it to the Row­ley Gov­ern­ment to help T&T re­cov­er from the eco­nom­ic cost of the cri­sis.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “The work the UNC’s done for eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery is in the na­tion­al in­ter­est—for every cit­i­zen. It would be self­ish of us to hold on to it, giv­en how valu­able it is to re­build­ing our coun­try right now. The lives of our cit­i­zens mat­ter more than pol­i­tics. I ap­peal to the Prime Min­is­ter and his team to put peo­ple be­fore par­ty and pol­i­tics and ac­cept our plan.”

“With­in the next month the Gov­ern­ment’s eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery team is ex­pect­ed to present a draft plan with rec­om­men­da­tions to restart the econ­o­my. That’s why, in the true spir­it of na­tion­al uni­ty and bi­par­ti­san­ship, the UNC is will­ing to share our eco­nom­ic man­i­festo with the Gov­ern­ment so we can get a head start on turn­ing our econ­o­my around.”

The Op­po­si­tion pre­sent­ed its plan sev­er­al days be­fore Gov­ern­ment’s Re­cov­ery Roadmap team presents its plan to the Prime Min­is­ter on Fri­day. Yes­ter­day, Gov­ern­ment called on mem­bers of the pub­lic to sub­mit sug­ges­tions.

At the same time, Per­sad-Bisses­sar pre­miered UNC’s eco­nom­ic man­i­festo (via video), adding, Gov­ern­ment’s stim­u­lus pack­age fo­cus­es on­ly on the short term.

“The UNC’s Na­tion­al Eco­nom­ic Trans­for­ma­tion Mas­ter­plan is more than a stim­u­lus pack­age. It’s our eco­nom­ic man­i­festo for how we’ll pro­tect and cre­ate jobs, bring ben­e­fits to every­one, and gen­er­ate a sense of hope that things will get bet­ter.”

UNC has five “eco­nom­ic boost­er shots” for re­cov­ery, growth and restart­ing di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion away from the dom­i­nant en­er­gy sec­tor.

The Op­po­si­tion es­ti­mates its plan can cre­ate 50,000 new jobs with­in the next five years and dou­ble non-en­er­gy ex­ports to US$5 bil­lion by 2025. The plan in­volves steps to:

• Re­duce the tax bur­den

• Jump­start food se­cu­ri­ty

• Restart a re­formed oil re­fin­ery to re­gain fu­el se­cu­ri­ty

• In­vest in re­new­able en­er­gy.

• Cre­ation of three in­no­v­a­tive funds to mo­bi­lize fi­nances.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said apart from hu­man loss in the COVID is­sue, “We now see many strug­gling to get food for fam­i­lies...thou­sands have been out of work for over a month and won­der what will be­come of their jobs when lock­down ends.”

“Busi­ness­es strug­gling to pay em­ploy­ees and cov­er costs won­der if they’ll have cus­tomers when they re­open—if they are able to re­open.” She said se­ri­ous plan­ning is need­ed since even be­fore the pan­dem­ic, T&T was in a very vul­ner­a­ble eco­nom­ic state.

The UNC rec­om­mend­ed leas­ing 25,000 acres of for­mer Ca­roni lands to cre­ate agri­cul­tur­al parks and spend­ing at least 10 per cent of the Pub­lic Sec­tor In­vest­ment plan (PSIP) to de­vel­op agri­cul­tur­al ac­cess roads, ir­ri­ga­tion and drainage for parks.