Former Trade Minister Vasant Bharath is concerned that there are signs of an economic meltdown inT&T.
He cited the further increase in public debt and the country's decline in the Ease of Doing Business ranking for as worrying indicators of an economic meltdown.
In a statement yesterday, Bharath said: "The recent floating of a $500 million six-year bond, now surreptitiously upsized and doubled to $1 billion, makes clear Government's ill-fated policy of increasing public debt for non-investment and non-productive spending.
The former minister warned that debt levels were escalating out of control and had increased by almost $14 billion in the last year alone.
"It is now absolutely clear that the Government's main policy instruments for raising revenues are increased levels of taxation on an already beleaguered population as well as increasing public debt," he said.
Bharath said the most recent data from the Central Bank gave a dismal outlook for the economy with declines in the energy and non-energy sectors of 10.7 per cent and 10.9 per cent respectively and no indication of an economic strategy to restore confidence, stability and growth.
He added that the November 2016 Monetary Policy Report (MPR) indicated that the 8 per cent contraction of the economy in the second quarter of the year was the worst ever quarterly contraction in the country's history.
Continued natural gas supply shortages, maintenance shutdowns and weak energy prices contributed to the energy sector's deterioration, while linkages with that sector pulled down the non-energy sector, Bharath said.
He also noted that the current account deficit had widened as a result of reduced goods exports and now stood at over US$1 billiuon, an increase of almost US$800 million and unemployment was now at 4.4 per cent and steadily climbing.
Bharath said another factor that would contribute to further economic deteriorati on was the decline in T&T's tanking for Ease of Doing Business.
"As recently as October 2014, Trinidad and Tobago was lauded by the World Bank as being one of the top ten reformers in the world, with the most reforms making it easier to do business," he said.
"At that time we increased 12 places from the previous year, yet by 2016 we have weakened to a rank of 96 with the World Bank saying it is now tougher to do business in this country."
Recent reports have stated that with 95 being the break-even point, the drop was enough to knock T&T into the half of countries where it is more "difficult" rather than "easy" to do business.
The former minister called for "serious and meaningful action" to ensure the rank did not further deteriorate, especially in a time of severe economic decline and instability and a non-productive burgeoning public debt.
He said these, together with the spiralling murder rate, job losses and ineffectiveness of many long established institutions were conspiring to create a sense of hopelessness among citizens.
"Urgent action is required; too many factors are converging to create irreparable damage and lasting economic volatility and we must act while we still have some small window of opportunity to turn things around. But action has to be taken immediately," Bharath said.
