KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

There are mixed re­views from some econ­o­mists over Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar la­belling the coun­try a “law­less dump”.

Ac­cord­ing to Prof Patrick Wat­son, the PM’s choice of words was said in poor judge­ment. Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia via tele­phone yes­ter­day, Wat­son said Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s words were not on­ly un­kind, but he be­lieves they can dis­cour­age for­eign in­vestors from want­i­ng to do busi­ness with our coun­try.

He said, “First of all, it’s in bad taste for the Prime Min­is­ter to be say­ing that. And sec­ond­ly, if you’re re­al­ly hop­ing to at­tract peo­ple here, that is clear­ly not the way. You are say­ing that we are a law­less so­ci­ety. I think since they (the Gov­ern­ment) have come in­to of­fice, they seem to be think­ing that they’re do­ing a lot of good things, but I think that every­thing they’re do­ing is quite neg­a­tive.

“I am very dis­ap­point­ed by what has hap­pened in re­cent times. And some of the things that she said dur­ing the cam­paign, such as, for in­stance, that the traf­fic vi­o­la­tion fees and fines were PNM hoax­es to get more mon­ey ... here she comes and dou­bles the rate on peo­ple.

“So it’s a lot of things that I am very, very un­com­fort­able with. And I re­al­ly hope that things change and that good sense even­tu­al­ly pre­vails. Be­cause at the mo­ment, good sense is not pre­vail­ing. I think in all fair­ness, peo­ple should get a hold of her and pre­vent her from say­ing the first thing that comes to her head. That is what is very, very bad and very, very dan­ger­ous about her. Be­cause she is the Prime Min­is­ter. And when she says some­thing, it goes down as a per­ma­nent record.”

Wat­son added, “Say­ing we are a law­less dump, those are not kind words. That is not true. There is some law­less­ness here. I will not dis­agree. And we have to deal with it. But to de­scribe us as that, and to jus­ti­fy some of the ac­tions that you are tak­ing, what that is do­ing is that you have put your­self in a cor­ner by the words that you have used in the past.

“And now you are try­ing to jus­ti­fy what you are do­ing by mak­ing ex­treme state­ments. And no­body is go­ing to take com­fort. I am sure that she will come to­mor­row and say this is what she re­al­ly meant and so on. That is what is go­ing to hap­pen.”

Mean­while, econ­o­mist In­dera Sage­wan agrees with the PM that a lot of law­less­ness ex­ists in the coun­try.

She told Guardian Me­dia when for­eign in­vestors do their due dili­gence, they would be con­cerned about is­sues such as crime.

Sage­wan said, “I don’t see any in­ter­na­tion­al me­dia house par­tak­ing in this. I don’t see any for­eign in­vestor look­ing at Trinidad and To­ba­go’s head­lines. They are go­ing to do their due dili­gence. They are go­ing to look at the is­sue of crime. They are go­ing to look at the is­sue of the length of time it takes to open a busi­ness. The ease with which they can ac­cess for­eign ex­change. For­eign ex­change can move be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go. They are go­ing to look at crime. Crime would be a ma­jor one, be­cause that’s about the cost of do­ing busi­ness.

“The ease at which there is–if it’s phys­i­cal busi­ness, there is ease at which they can trans­ship what they are pro­duc­ing and ease at which they can do it. To me, those would be the el­e­ments. Those would be the things any in­vestor would be look­ing at.”

Sage­wan said head­lines were not the sum to­tal of what is ac­tu­al­ly ar­tic­u­lat­ed. “So that the head­lines with­in the me­dia don’t come across very well. How­ev­er, when you read the con­text, and you read what she has said, I think that the mes­sag­ing is quite clear. The re­al­i­ty of the fact that we are, in many in­stances, a law­less so­ci­ety in terms of the way we car­ry our­selves. You’re dri­ving on the road, and some­body’s al­ways so busy that they couldn’t get in. And not just some­body. Dri­vers are al­ways so busy that they think that they should take the shoul­der be­cause they need to get to wher­ev­er they need to go be­fore every­body else. That’s law­less­ness. If you choose to dri­ve, and you don’t have your in­sur­ance, or you don’t have a dri­ver’s li­cense, that is law­less­ness.”

“Look at where crime has got­ten to in this coun­try. Crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty is law­less­ness. Or­di­nary, de­cent, law-abid­ing cit­i­zens, they live in jail, while crim­i­nal el­e­ments are free to roam, and that pro­lif­er­a­tion is re­al­ly wide­spread.”

Sage­wan be­lieves the rift be­tween Venezuela and the Unit­ed States would pose a greater threat to in­vestors want­i­ng to do busi­ness in T&T.

Sage­wan said, “The is­sue of the cloud that hangs over us, with re­spect to this sit­u­a­tion with Venezuela and the Unit­ed States, could po­ten­tial­ly im­pact. They will want to wait. No­body is go­ing to want to make an in­vest­ment. The po­ten­tial of war in the near fu­ture hang­ing over our heads. So that would be a se­ri­ous el­e­ment that they would look at.”