Ian Nar­ine

At the dawn of the mil­len­ni­um, the politi­cians of the day en­am­ored the peo­ple of T&T with the promise of de­vel­oped coun­try sta­tus. One leader sug­gest­ed that T&T should be a de­vel­oped coun­try by 2020. The oth­er, in the game of po­lit­i­cal one-up­man­ship, promised to de­liv­er by 2010.

To­day, three years af­ter one time­line and 13 years in­to the oth­er–mean­ing sev­en years short of the dead­line–where are we on the road to de­vel­oped coun­try sta­tus com­pared to our start­ing point in 2001?

Our lack of gov­er­nance sys­tems and sys­tems of gov­ern­ment have left us mov­ing at snail pace, if not at a stand­still. This, de­spite un­told bil­lions of dol­lars in oil and gas rev­enues with lots more still in re­serve.

It is a lev­el of ir­re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and, if I may use the ex­pres­sion "er­rant non­sense" of the high­est or­der, that a na­tion can seek to ap­proach the is­sue of de­vel­oped coun­try sta­tus with­out ad­dress­ing its trans­porta­tion in­fra­struc­ture and hav­ing a re­li­able tran­sit sys­tem.

A na­tion­al trans­porta­tion study is the ba­sis up­on which a tran­sit sys­tem should be de­vel­oped and in­fra­struc­ture built. How­ev­er, the last com­plet­ed study for T&T was done in 1967, some 46 years ago. This study was pri­or to our first oil boom, and our last gas boom. If one un­der­stands the role of trans­porta­tion on eco­nom­ic growth and de­vel­op­ment, then one will be forced to con­clude there was noth­ing more reck­less from our po­lit­i­cal di­rec­torate than the fail­ure to up­date this study.

T&T was promised an up­dat­ed doc­u­ment by the then Min­is­ter of Works in 2003. A new study was com­mis­sioned in 2004 but, at the time of the last gen­er­al elec­tion, it was not yet com­plete. In the en­su­ing three years, there has been lit­tle men­tion of this doc­u­ment.

With­out this study, the mil­lions spent on the Vi­sion 2020 plan was noth­ing more than a pap­py show and its re­place­ment, the cur­rent Medi­um-Term Macro­eco­nom­ic plan sim­ply a stop gap. In be­tween all the shenani­gans, bil­lions of dol­lars have been spent and, in many in­stances, mis­al­lo­cat­ed due to the ab­sence of a clear and co­her­ent pol­i­cy con­cern­ing one of, if not the, fun­da­men­tal build­ing block of na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

Imag­ine

Imag­ine a bil­lion-dol­lar pro­pos­al with mil­lions spent on fea­si­bil­i­ty, for a rapid rail project with­out the trans­port study be­ing com­plete and laid in the Par­lia­ment. Imag­ine re­ject­ing that pro­pos­al and mov­ing to an en­hanced bus ser­vice with­out the move to com­plete the trans­porta­tion study.

Imag­ine pro­pos­als across the po­lit­i­cal di­vide to con­struct bil­lion dol­lar high­ways and oth­er road net­works through the length and breadth of T&T and no study in place to en­sure con­sis­tent and co­her­ent ac­tion.

Can you imag­ine that in the above sce­nario, busi­ness groups and civ­il so­ci­ety as a whole will sit idly by and fail to com­ment or bring pres­sure to bear so that we can de­vel­op our trans­porta­tion in­fra­struc­ture to the lev­el need­ed?

Can you imag­ine giv­en all of the above, that a trade union move­ment, seem­ing­ly will­ing to protest for every mat­ter un­der the sun, can't raise a voice in anger as it re­lates to the ab­sence of a prop­er and vi­able pub­lic trans­port sys­tem and road net­work in this coun­try. This, de­spite the fact that trans­porta­tion af­fects the work­ing-class more than any oth­er fea­ture of na­tion­al life as peo­ple line up for hours or are dai­ly left strand­ed for trans­porta­tion to and from work.

If ever there was a case of will­ful blind­ness by al­most all of the lead­ers in T&T, both past and present, then this is it.

Ef­fi­cient trans­port, cheap­er ex­ports

Or is it that we are deal­ing with con­trived ig­no­rance where we are un­able to ap­pre­ci­ate it was the in­ven­tion of the steam en­gine and the trans­porta­tion net­work as­so­ci­at­ed with it, that gave rise to the in­dus­tri­al rev­o­lu­tion. Where we fail to recog­nise it was the open­ing up of air and sea trav­el that fa­cil­i­tat­ed the eco­nom­ic growth as­so­ci­at­ed with glob­al­i­sa­tion over the past 30 years.

It would be use­ful as well to con­sid­er the role trans­porta­tion played and con­tin­ues to play in the wealth cre­ation of coun­tries around the world. The Unit­ed States is blessed through the East­ern and West­ern sea board­ers ac­cess to the two oth­er ma­jor trad­ing basins in the world: Eu­rope and Asia. It has the largest span of nav­i­ga­ble wa­ter ways of any coun­try in the world, then, of course, the south­ern sea bor­der for oil and gas ship­ments. This, com­bined with a com­pre­hen­sive road, rail and air net­work, gen­er­ates cap­i­tal dai­ly as goods can be moved around the coun­try and for ex­port cheap­er that most oth­er coun­tries.

The con­trast be­tween North­ern Eu­rope and South­ern Eu­rope is al­so in part due to the ef­fi­cien­cy of the trans­porta­tion in­fra­struc­ture brought about by the fact that most of the nav­i­ga­ble wa­ter cours­es in Eu­rope are to the north. The use of wa­ter cours­es to trans­port goods rep­re­sents the cheap­est way to move car­go and gen­er­ates a com­pet­i­tive ad­van­tage. At the present tim, North­ern Eu­rope is on sta­ble foot­ing while South­ern Eu­rope is a bas­ket case.

It is the trans­port in­fra­struc­ture of New York morethan any­thing else that al­lowed for the build­ing out of a ser­vice sec­tor that places the city as the fi­nan­cial cap­i­tal of the world. The Riv­er Thames, which is the sec­ond largest riv­er in Eu­rope, flows though Lon­don and, there­fore, pro­vides a trans­porta­tion hub.

The above ex­am­ples point to coun­tries util­is­ing ge­og­ra­phy to as­sist in its trans­porta­tion in­fra­struc­ture to cre­ate a nat­ur­al com­pet­i­tive ad­van­tage. How­ev­er, there are al­so many man-made suc­cess sto­ries. Trans­port in­fra­struc­ture can turn places with no nat­ur­al re­sources in­to thriv­ing eco­nom­ic cen­tres. The prime ex­am­ple is Sin­ga­pore. It is the in­fra­struc­ture Sin­ga­pore has put in as it re­lates to be­ing a trans­port hub for South East Asia and even­tu­al­ly for world trade that made it in­to the eco­nom­ic pow­er­house. Pana­ma, as a ben­e­fi­cia­ry of the Pana­ma Canal, has build ser­vices around this lo­ca­tion to be­come one of the suc­cess sto­ries of Latin Amer­i­ca. Were we not told that T&T was the gate­way to Latin Amer­i­ca?

Falling be­hind

Com­mon to Sin­ga­pore and Pana­ma are air ser­vices that sup­port the po­si­tion­ing of the re­spec­tive coun­tries on the glob­al stage. Now com­pare Sin­ga­pore Air­lines and CO­PA Air­lines to our own Caribbean Air­lines Ltd, and its pre­vi­ous in­car­na­tion, and you will un­der­stand why we con­tin­ue to fall be­hind.

Every day, with our cur­rent road in­fra­struc­ture, we con­tin­ue to fall fur­ther be­hind. Last week com­muters be­tween Port-of-Spain and San Fer­nan­do would have seen nu­mer­ous ex­am­ples of the need for an al­ter­na­tive high­way route to link the two main cities in the coun­try. Fre­quent­ly, the north and south of the coun­try are cut off due to road re­pairs, ac­ci­dents or floods, and this has a sig­nif­i­cant im­pact on na­tion­al pro­duc­tiv­i­ty.

Be­yond the in­fra­struc­ture is the poor qual­i­ty and un­re­li­a­bil­i­ty of our pub­lic trans­port sys­tem. This has a di­rect im­pact on the lev­el of wealth cre­ation in our so­ci­ety. I am not sim­ply speak­ing about get­ting to work, but how we spend the in­come earned from work.

Most peo­ple, once they be­gin work­ing, will quick­ly go about own­ing a car and most of­ten the car is pur­chased on cred­it. Af­ter tak­ing ac­count of in­ter­est pay­ments, one will of­ten be re­quired to pay two to three times the cost of the ve­hi­cle in in­stal­ments. How­ev­er, a car is a de­pre­ci­at­ing as­set, mean­ing that by the time the ve­hi­cle is com­plete­ly paid for, it is worth around one-quar­ter its orig­i­nal val­ue.

Pay­ing twice the amount to own one-quar­ter of the val­ue at the end is a recipe for fi­nan­cial dis­tress. The cost of own­ing a ve­hi­cle could eas­i­ly be de­ferred if there is an ef­fi­cient pub­lic trans­port sys­tem. Those funds can then con­tribute to­wards the ac­qui­si­tion of in­come-gen­er­at­ing as­sets or the pur­chase of a home.

A more ef­fi­cient and broad-based pub­lic trans­port sys­tem means de­mand for homes be­comes more dis­persed, lead­ing to more bal­anced price ap­pre­ci­a­tion and, there­fore, greater af­ford­abil­i­ty. All of these fac­tors con­tribute to the cre­ation of wealth and, ul­ti­mate­ly, a so­ci­ety that is more self-suf­fi­cient.

In­stead of these com­mon sense ap­proach­es, we pre­fer to sub­sidise fu­el, sub­sidise hous­es, and even sub­sidise the ex­ist­ing pub­lic trans­port ser­vices on of­fer. Even­tu­al­ly the sub­si­dies will end and then our con­trived ig­no­rance or will­ful blind­ness will give rise to a rude awak­en­ing.

Ian Nar­ine is a bro­ker reg­is­tered­with the Se­cu­ri­ties and Ex­change Com­mis­sion and can be con­tacte­dat: ian.nar­ine@gmail.com.