Vas­ant Bharath

Stan­dard & Poor’s has sent us a clear but sober­ing mes­sage in its lat­est rat­ings re­port. Our sov­er­eign rat­ing has been af­firmed at BBB-, but our out­look has been re­vised from sta­ble to neg­a­tive, pri­mar­i­ly be­cause our “fis­cal and ex­ter­nal buffers have erod­ed grad­u­al­ly over many years”.

For most cit­i­zens, this may sound tech­ni­cal. It is, how­ev­er, a strong warn­ing: the world still sees us as cred­it­wor­thy, but con­fi­dence is frag­ile. Un­less we act de­ci­sive­ly in the next six–24 months, we risk a “one in three chance” of be­ing down­grad­ed, which would in­evitably raise bor­row­ing costs, weak­en our re­serves, and lim­it our abil­i­ty to fund so­cial pro­grammes.

The good news is that we have strong foun­da­tions: a re­silient democ­ra­cy, deep ex­ter­nal buffers, and the Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund (HSF) along­side cen­tral bank re­serves equal to more than half of GDP. Our net debt re­mains mod­er­ate. But mar­kets are clear; as­sets alone are not enough. We must prove that we can and will use them wise­ly.

This Gov­ern­ment’s im­me­di­ate pri­or­i­ty is cred­i­bil­i­ty, not just na­tion­al­ly but re­gion­al­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. That is why I be­lieve our re­cov­ery path must be an­chored on two cards that we must play si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly: cred­i­bil­i­ty first, growth sec­ond. The first six months must fo­cus on sta­bil­is­ing mar­kets and show­ing both cit­i­zens and in­vestors that our plan is time-bound, trans­par­ent, and mea­sur­able.

Here, in my opin­ion, are the steps Gov­ern­ment should take im­me­di­ate­ly:

• The 2026 Bud­get must be fo­cused on a 12-month Fis­cal Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Plan, out­lin­ing in sim­ple num­bers how much rev­enue we ex­pect, par­tic­u­lar­ly from the non-en­er­gy sec­tor, how much each min­istry will spend, and what our debt and deficit tar­gets are.

• Gov­ern­ment should in­di­cate its tar­get growth rate and how it will be achieved through the sec­tors that will con­tribute to this growth and the in­creased em­ploy­ment in these sec­tors.

• For six months, freeze all non-es­sen­tial projects. Con­cen­trate on crit­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture and pro­duc­tive capex whilst redi­rect­ing funds to health, ed­u­ca­tion, and tar­get­ed so­cial sup­port. Waste and du­pli­ca­tion must be re­duced, start­ing with state rentals and se­cu­ri­ty de­tails. Trinidad and To­ba­go’s spend­ing has been ranked by the IDB, in a re­cent study, as one of the most waste­ful in the Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­ca.

• A clear debt man­age­ment strat­e­gy should be out­lined, in­clud­ing fi­nanc­ing of the US$1B bond due next year.

• The Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund is there to pro­tect the coun­try, not to be treat­ed as easy cash. To en­gen­der trust, with­drawals should on­ly be for debt smooth­ing or in­vest­ments that build fu­ture in­dus­tries. Month­ly pub­lic up­dates should be pro­vid­ed.

• Rais­ing tax­es is not an op­tion, Gov­ern­ment must fix leak­ages. A new unit with­in the Board of In­land Rev­enue needs to be set up ur­gent­ly to digi­tise and mod­ernise col­lec­tions. Clos­ing the gap be­tween what is owed and what is col­lect­ed will bring in much-need­ed rev­enue fair­ly.

• Cit­i­zens and busi­ness­es de­serve to know how scarce US dol­lars are be­ing al­lo­cat­ed. The gov­ern­ment must pub­lish a frame­work that pri­ori­tis­es es­sen­tials such as food, med­i­cine, and in­puts for ex­porters.

Once sta­bil­i­ty is re­stored, fo­cus on re­forms that touch the lives of or­di­nary cit­i­zens:

• De­cen­tral­i­sa­tion and im­proved ac­cess to ser­vices, ie, shift­ing ser­vices away from Port-of-Spain to re­gion­al hubs.

• Traf­fic man­age­ment. Too many hours are wast­ed in grid­lock traf­fic, lead­ing to a lack of pro­duc­tiv­i­ty in the work­place and stress in the home.

• Crime is a de­bil­i­tat­ing fac­tor to in­vest­ment, leisure, and the over­all qual­i­ty of life of all cit­i­zens. A re­formed po­lice ser­vice, to­geth­er with el­e­ments of the de­fence force, coast guard, cus­toms, im­mi­gra­tion and air guard must work joint­ly and col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly to com­bat the crime scourge.

• Cre­ate an over­sight body that looks at the price of im­port­ed food along the chain from port to su­per­mar­ket shelf, en­sur­ing that price goug­ing is elim­i­nat­ed.

• Re­form of the pub­lic ser­vice to en­sure ef­fi­cient de­liv­ery of goods and ser­vices to the pub­lic.

• Fix­ing state en­ter­pris­es, which too of­ten drain re­sources with­out de­liv­er­ing val­ue.

• Mak­ing projects more trans­par­ent, with in­de­pen­dent au­dits to en­sure tax­pay­er mon­ey is not wast­ed.

The longer-term task is to change our growth sto­ry. We are be­ing left be­hind. Ac­cord­ing to the S&P re­port, T&T’s re­al av­er­age growth per capi­ta is be­low that of coun­tries with sim­i­lar in­come lev­els. For too long, we have been over­ly de­pen­dent on oil and gas. They re­main im­por­tant, but we must build oth­er en­gines of growth.

That means:

• Grow­ing more of what we eat. A sus­tained ‘Buy Lo­cal’ cam­paign. There must be a na­tion­al dri­ve to cut the food im­port bill by at least 30 per cent over the next five years. ALL state-fund­ed or­gan­i­sa­tions, ie, the reg­i­ment, coast guard, po­lice, pris­ons, schools, etc, must be man­dat­ed to use at least 85 per cent lo­cal pro­duce.

• A hand-hold­ing and sup­port­ive pro­gramme for agro-proces­sors and small farm­ers with loans, cold stor­age, guar­an­teed pric­ing for spec­i­fied and iden­ti­fied crops, and fi­nanc­ing and in­cen­tives to bring young en­tre­pre­neurs in­to the sec­tor.

• Build­ing new in­dus­tries in re­new­able en­er­gy, ICT, sport and med­ical tourism, ma­rine, yacht­ing, and fi­nan­cial ser­vices.

• At­tract­ing in­vest­ment in­to Spe­cial Ex­port Zones with mod­ern in­fra­struc­ture and fast-track ap­provals.

• Ed­u­ca­tion cur­ricu­lum and train­ing for our young peo­ple with the skills need­ed for the jobs of to­mor­row—in re­new­able en­er­gy, tech­nol­o­gy, telemed­i­cine, AI, ro­bot­ics, cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty, and ad­vanced man­u­fac­tur­ing.

The mes­sage from S&P is clear: T&T still has valu­able as­sets, but the world wants proof we will use them wise­ly. Our re­sponse must be equal­ly clear. In the short term, we must demon­strate dis­ci­pline, trans­paren­cy, and in­de­pen­dent over­sight. In the medi­um term, we must leg­is­late re­forms that pre­vent a down­grade. And in the long term, we must in­vest in new in­dus­tries, cre­ate jobs, build food se­cu­ri­ty, and cre­ate broad-based growth.

Stan­dard & Poor’s de­ci­sion is a warn­ing, but it is al­so an op­por­tu­ni­ty. T&T has the buffers and the in­sti­tu­tions to suc­ceed. This Gov­ern­ment, with its re­cent land­slide vic­to­ry at the polls and sub­stan­tial good­will, is well poised to ac­com­plish both.

This is not just about avoid­ing a down­grade. It is about pro­tect­ing cit­i­zens from high­er prices, cre­at­ing de­cent jobs, cre­at­ing a se­cure en­vi­ron­ment, and en­sur­ing that the coun­try’s sav­ings work for the peo­ple. With cred­i­bil­i­ty first and growth sec­ond, we can re­store con­fi­dence, pro­tect our most vul­ner­a­ble, and lay the foun­da­tions for a stronger, more re­silient na­tion.

Vas­ant Bharath is a for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter and in­ter­na­tion­al fi­nan­cial con­sul­tant.