Samp­son Nan­ton

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley is op­ti­mistic that the worse is be­hind us and his mes­sage to Trinidad and To­ba­go is that 2021 rep­re­sents “a new be­gin­ning”.

In his New Year’s Day mes­sage, the prime min­is­ter as­sured his gov­ern­ment will do its best to lead the coun­try on a path of growth and pros­per­i­ty.

That op­ti­mism was not en­tire­ly shared by Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes who said that “we can whis­per ‘it will be hap­pi­er’ un­til we are blue in the face and still not re­alise our hopes, dreams and as­pi­ra­tions for Trinidad and To­ba­go in 2021”, un­less ac­tion is tak­en to ad­dress the con­cerns of cit­i­zens.

Op­po­si­tion Leader, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, mean­while, said while this is the time for growth and in­no­v­a­tive think­ing, it’s un­like­ly to hap­pen un­der the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion.

PM’s op­ti­mism

Row­ley kept faith alive.

“The first of Jan­u­ary 2021 is not just the start of the new year – but it is the day in which we be­gin to set out what we can see as a new be­gin­ning. There are those among us, the nay-say­ers, who will cry out im­me­di­ate­ly, cast­ing doubts that this year will be just an ex­ten­sion of the aw­ful night­mare of 2020. My gov­ern­ment with its “bound­less faith in our des­tiny” holds, in­stead, to its faith in the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, see­ing on­ly hope and op­por­tu­ni­ties.”

He not­ed, how­ev­er, that the chal­lenges faced in 2020 re­main with us, in­clud­ing the pan­dem­ic and a 4.4 per cent de­cline in the world econ­o­my.

But he said 2021 looks bet­ter.

“The IMF’s World Eco­nom­ic Out­look projects a 5.1 per cent growth in 2021, which is ex­pect­ed to lev­el off at 3.5 per cent in the medi­um term. It projects that Trinidad and To­ba­go will see a 2.6 per cent eco­nom­ic growth this year, as com­pared to the -5.6 of 2020. But the re­al good news is that we have lived to see an­oth­er year, and 2021 springs eter­nal hope for us as a peo­ple. I be­lieve the worst is be­hind us.”

He added: “The new be­gin­ning I speak of will be a re-ori­en­ta­tion of the econ­o­my, a tran­si­tion in­to the dig­i­tal age, which will cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties for small busi­ness­es, and in­creas­ing em­ploy­ment in this area. Op­por­tu­ni­ties are al­so iden­ti­fied in man­u­fac­tur­ing, en­er­gy ser­vices, green tech­nol­o­gy and agri­cul­ture. The gov­ern­ment, in its role, will be pay­ing at­ten­tion to emerg­ing in­no­va­tions, pre­dict­ing fu­ture trends, at­tract­ing col­lab­o­ra­tions, fa­cil­i­tat­ing the re-de­sign of work process­es and re-pur­pos­ing of or­gan­i­sa­tions.”

Pres­i­dent’s word of cau­tion

Pres­i­dent Weekes’ mes­sage point­ed to­ward the need for more fo­cus on the con­cerns of cit­i­zens, say­ing it was her du­ty “to keep the peo­ple’s prob­lems front and cen­tre of the na­tion­al agen­da”.

“While the gov­ern­ment of the day may well have some of these mat­ters in its sights, those in the kitchen are feel­ing the heat dai­ly and are not sym­pa­thet­ic to hack­neyed ex­cus­es, promis­es of ac­tion and sob sto­ries of do­ing one’s best, which they have heard ad nau­se­um, with noth­ing to show for it,” she said.

She said as­sur­ances that bet­ter days are com­ing “ring hol­low with­out some demon­stra­ble proof that those who are charged with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of im­prov­ing our lives and ad­dress­ing our is­sues are on the job, work­ing as­sid­u­ous­ly to for­mu­late and ex­e­cute plans, poli­cies and pro­grammes that re­dound to our ben­e­fit in the short, medi­um and long terms.”

She said open com­mu­ni­ca­tion and to­tal trans­paren­cy are in­te­gral to such ap­proach, adding, “Pub­lic of­fi­cials have to stop be­ing so se­cre­tive (ex­cept in the in­ter­est of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty), para­noid, and dis­mis­sive of the anx­i­eties of our cit­i­zens. They make de­ci­sions and take ac­tion un­der our au­thor­i­ty and on our be­half, and we are there­fore en­ti­tled to be kept in the loop about rel­e­vant de­vel­op­ments. Those in au­thor­i­ty must, like Cae­sar’s wife, be above sus­pi­cion and re­proach in all their deal­ings.”

She added: “We would all like to have cause to be op­ti­mistic, even if cau­tious­ly so, about our for­tunes in the new year. Let us with ur­gency have those na­tion­al con­ver­sa­tions fol­lowed by the nec­es­sary ac­tion, or else al­though from to­day the dates on our di­aries and cheques read 2021, we will still be haunt­ed by the ghosts of 2020.”

Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar.

Abraham-Diaz

Op­po­si­tion Leader’s mis­trust

Per­sad-Bisses­sar is not as­sured that this gov­ern­ment can lead the coun­try to brighter days. She called on the gov­ern­ment to do more to re­turn cit­i­zens trapped abroad.

“I urge the gov­ern­ment to fix its bro­ken ex­emp­tion process, pro­vid­ing clar­i­ty, in­for­ma­tion and sup­port to our cit­i­zens strand­ed abroad as to when they can make their way home.”

How­ev­er, she said that amid the dif­fi­cul­ties, one sig­nif­i­cant thing that stands out is our uni­ty as a peo­ple.

“When our fel­low cit­i­zens lost their jobs, oth­ers stepped for­ward to help pro­vide meals and oth­er re­lief items. When chil­dren were left with­out ac­cess to on­line learn­ing, many good cit­i­zens stepped for­ward to pro­vide de­vices so that they would not fall be­hind. Through­out this pan­dem­ic we saw the spir­it of the peo­ple of our beloved na­tion - the spir­it of kind­ness, courage, and com­pas­sion.”

In her view, the gov­ern­ment cre­at­ed some of the prob­lems the coun­try ex­pe­ri­enced in 2020.

“This PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion presided over mas­sive job cuts, ris­ing lev­els of crime, and se­vere eco­nom­ic con­trac­tion, with no vi­sion or plan. Now is the time for in­no­v­a­tive think­ing and strate­gic ini­tia­tives to cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties for our growth and de­vel­op­ment, but sad­ly, this is not forth­com­ing from this ad­min­is­tra­tion.”

She warned the months ahead will be dif­fi­cult but said “we will meet these chal­lenges as we have al­ways done, as one peo­ple work­ing to­geth­er to­wards a com­mon goal - a stronger Trinidad and To­ba­go. There is no ob­sta­cle that a unit­ed na­tion can­not over­come.”