Sean Nero

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an con­tin­ues to re­ject on­go­ing crit­i­cisms that his op­ti­mistic view of the lo­cal econ­o­my is on­ly mis­guid­ed, while his fis­cal poli­cies are not ef­fec­tive. Up to yes­ter­day, for­mer PNM min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance Mar­i­ano Browne on his ra­dio pro­gramme called "The 95 Man­date," ac­cused Dook­er­an of be­ing in de­nial of the fact that T&T was in a re­ces­sion, which in eco­nom­ic terms was de­ter­mined when a coun­try ex­pe­ri­ences three years of neg­a­tive growth.

Browne is the lat­est econ­o­mist to pub­licly chal­lenge the coun­try's true state of fi­nan­cial health. But Dook­er­an, while de­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress at the Home Mort­gage Bank (HMB) 25th An­niver­sary Gala Awards Cer­e­mo­ny held at the Hy­att Re­gency Trinidad, Port-of-Spain, on Fri­day, said when he lis­tened to com­men­ta­tors on the is­sue of the eco­nom­ic fu­ture of T&T, he heard 'nois­es' and won­dered if they un­der­stood how the eco­nom­ic buffers from the past and the ones be­ing built for the present and fu­ture were pro­vid­ing the lo­cal econ­o­my and cit­i­zen­ry with a sense of com­fort.

He said, "Dur­ing the de­bate that re­cent­ly took place in Par­lia­ment, it was sug­gest­ed that the coun­try must look to the fu­ture, not with the sense of con­fi­dence that I have been ex­press­ing, but with a feel­ing of fear. I want to as­sure you that I have no fear. I am sure that this econ­o­my would come out of its neg­a­tive growth in which it has been for the last three years."

Dook­er­an added, "The world went in­to a tail­spin end­ing to­day in a ma­jor chal­lenge for re­cov­ery and de­vel­op­ment. We in T&T have been some­what in­su­lat­ed from that and we have been in­su­lat­ed from that be­cause of poli­cies that have been fol­lowed. We have been in­su­lat­ed from that be­cause we have found the right buffers, and we are build­ing the right buffers to deal with ex­ter­nal shocks."

The Fi­nance Min­is­ter said with most of the wage ne­go­ti­a­tions for 2008 com­plet­ed, the gov­ern­ment now has the free­dom to go in the di­rec­tion of cap­i­tal in­jec­tion in the pub­lic sec­tor. Ad­mit­ting that this process would take place more slow­ly than he would like, he was, how­ev­er, heart­ened by the fact that T&T was some­what in­su­lat­ed.

"But at the same time, I am very con­scious that we are not an is­land on­to our­selves. I'm very con­scious of the fact that what hap­pens else­where in the world af­fects us. What hap­pens in Caribbean coun­tries, oth­er than us, is very im­por­tant for our own well-be­ing, so we must be aware that there are risks ahead.

"There is com­fort to­day and there are risks ahead and we must find the right equi­lib­ri­um be­tween en­sur­ing the com­fort..."Dook­er­an said. Turn­ing his fo­cus back to the HMB, the min­is­ter said the state agency must pre­pare for an en­hanced re­spon­si­bil­i­ty with the planned merg­er with the T&T Mort­gage Fi­nance (TTMF).

He said in the merg­er now be­ing worked on, re­sources would have to be chan­nelled ei­ther through bonds that have been is­sued or else­where, that would have to be mul­ti­plied in the years to come. Dook­er­an laud­ed HMB for build­ing the foun­da­tion for home own­er­ship in T&T.