Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter 

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

The Tourism Min­is­ter is en­cour­ag­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic to trav­el out­side of T&T for a greater ap­pre­ci­a­tion of how good they have it in this coun­try.

Speak­ing in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day, Ran­dall Mitchell said he took note of the Op­po­si­tion’s at­tempt to ped­dle the nar­ra­tive that cit­i­zens can­not af­ford the price of goods and ser­vices in this coun­try.

How­ev­er, Mitchell told the Up­per House that it is on­ly when cit­i­zens leave this coun­try that they ap­pre­ci­ate how good they have it here.

“You have to talk to those peo­ple who trav­el out­side of T&T, or you have to trav­el your­self, to the Caribbean, or to Cana­da, the US, or the UK, trav­el and go and see in those coun­tries what the high cost of liv­ing re­al­ly looks like and feels like,” Mitchell posit­ed.

He added, “You know they say you have to feel it; it might sound like a Young Bred­da song, but you have to feel it. When you go out there and you ex­pe­ri­ence the high cost of fu­el, the high cost of util­i­ties, the high cost of trans­porta­tion, and the high cost of ac­com­mo­da­tion, that is when you know how good we have it here in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Mitchell lament­ed that those who come back of­ten speak in hushed tones af­ter that re­al­i­sa­tion, but he said that is when they see, “How sweet, sweet T&T re­al­ly is.”

The min­is­ter’s com­ments come a day af­ter Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert boast­ed that this coun­try may have the low­est in­fla­tion rate in the world. Min­is­ter Mitchell said the Op­po­si­tion was seek­ing to fool the pop­u­la­tion with pop­ulist plans that are not root­ed in so­cio-eco­nom­ic re­al­i­ties.

Mitchell al­so crit­i­cised them for ac­tive­ly seek­ing to chase away for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment and won­dered if any in­ter­na­tion­al busi­ness­es would want to in­vest in this coun­try if the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) sits in gov­ern­ment.

He used the sale of the Petrotrin re­fin­ery as an ex­am­ple and seem­ing­ly sought to de­fend In­di­an busi­ness­man Naveen Jin­dal in do­ing so.

On Mon­day, Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Wade Mark called for a crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the bid­ding process for the Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery, claim­ing that Jin­dal had two rel­a­tives on the board of one of the com­pa­nies short­list­ed to po­ten­tial­ly own the as­set.

Re­spond­ing to Mark a day lat­er, Mitchell said, “Mr Jin­dal, who has per­haps the sec­ond or third largest com­pa­ny in In­dia, fam­i­ly busi­ness, some of the rich­est peo­ple in the world, ex­press­es an in­ter­est to ex­press an in­ter­est in the re­fin­ery. It is his com­pa­ny that wants to in­vest in T&T, you know. They (the Op­po­si­tion) say Mr Jin­dal is a man ac­cused of all sorts of things in his po­lit­i­cal life, and there­fore he is the worst. Scan­dalised the man’s name.”

He said this was sim­i­lar to what they did with the San­dals Ho­tel for To­ba­go that did not ma­te­ri­alise.

“They scan­dalise the brand up and down the place, lo­cal­ly, in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, San­dals said our brand has worth and val­ue, and we are not here for that, and to­day be­cause of that, the peo­ple of To­ba­go suf­fer. Every­one in­volved in the tourism in­dus­try can­not get that eco­nom­ic boom be­cause of the UNC,” he added.

Re­turn­ing to the sale of the re­fin­ery, Mitchell said on one hand, the Op­po­si­tion ex­press­es alarm over for­eign ex­change re­serves, yet they chase away in­vestors.

“Up comes Sen­a­tor Mark to scan­dalise those en­ti­ties that have ex­pressed in­ter­est; what does that do?” the Tourism Min­is­ter asked.

Mitchell said when com­pa­nies are look­ing to en­ter a mar­ket, they look at the cur­rent and fu­ture po­lit­i­cal cli­mate.

“There may be a very, very slim out­side chance that the UNC may take of­fice—very slim, ma­ga, mea­gre—but those en­ti­ties, when they look at the be­hav­iour of the Op­po­si­tion, they tell them­selves, ‘Why go in­to T&T where there is such a hos­tile en­vi­ron­ment by these po­lit­i­cal ac­tors?’” he added. Mitchell said these same UNC politi­cians then com­plained about a lack of for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment.