When Planning Minister Dr Bhoe Tewarie appeared at the TV6 Town Meeting two weeks ago, he used the occasion to boast of the economic achievements of the PP administration which had rescued the economy from economic decline allegedly inherited from the PNM administration.
Dr Tewarie was speaking from talking points being fed to him on his mobile phone, which he glanced at repeatedly throughout the two-hour town meeting. He made the boast despite a currency depreciation and long queues for foreign exchange which have defied all attempts by the Ministry of Finance and the Governor of the Central Bank to throw copious amounts of US dollars at it.
Still, the massive public-relations campaign aimed at suggesting we are on the brink of economic boom continues. The Government is aided in this sleight of hand by the fact that real data are simply not available, as Dr Tewarie himself has presided over the continued dismantling of the Central Statistical Office, whose officers were, at one point recently, working from home.
http://www.guardian.co.tt/digital/new-members