Rhon­dor Dowlat

In mark­ing its first year in Gov­ern­ment, the PNM yes­ter­day sent out a list­ing of its achieve­ments, in­clud­ing the re­sump­tion of work on what was con­sid­ered as T&T's biggest "white ele­phant," the Bri­an Lara Sta­di­um in Tarou­ba.The cost of re­pairs to the sta­di­um had been es­ti­mat­ed at $90 mil­lion. An es­ti­mat­ed $800 mil­lion was al­ready spent to con­struct it.

Con­struc­tion on the Bri­an Lara Sta­di­um be­gan in May 2005 with an ini­tial cost es­ti­mate of $275 mil­lion. The sta­di­um, which has a ca­pac­i­ty of 17,000, was to be com­plet­ed be­fore the host­ing of the Crick­et World Cup in 2007 but was hit with mul­ti­ple de­lays and cost over­runs.

Yes­ter­day's list­ing was despatched by PNM's gen­er­al sec­re­tary Ash­ton Ford.

How­ev­er, it con­tained an ob­vi­ous mis­take where it list­ed three blun­ders made by the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) as PNM achieve­ments.

They were: Shut­down of Spe­cial An­ti-Crime Unit (SAUTT); in­sult­ed Ja­maicans (ATM slur) and in­sult­ed St Lu­cians in de­spair when in hur­ri­cane they were told that in or­der to get aid from T&T they must agree to buy from us.

Those three were list­ed as 35, 36 and 37 un­der PNM Gov­ern­ment Achieve­ments af­ter one year and al­so list­ed as the last three points in the com­par­i­son list­ing to the UNC blun­ders af­ter their first year.

Achieve­ments

PNM Gov­ern­ment achieve­mentsafter one year:

1. Small­er Cab­i­net size from 33 to 23 mem­bers.

2. De­creased per­cep­tion of cor­rup­tion ev­i­denced by CPI.

3. Di­a­logue and con­sul­ta­tion in

de­ci­sion-mak­ing.

4. Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment re­form em­barked up­on (Pol­i­cy Doc­u­ment).

5. Suc­cess­ful­ly brought the over­draft fa­cil­i­ty from neg­a­tive $9 bil­lion to ze­ro.

6. Re­sump­tion of on­go­ing projects, viz Bri­an Lara Sta­di­um, NA­PA etc, de­spite fi­nan­cial con­straints.

7. Com­ple­tion of cy­cling velo­drome.

8. Com­ple­tion of aquat­ic cen­tre.

9. Com­ple­tion of ten­nis cen­tre.

10. Ra­tio­nalise fis­cal ex­pen­di­ture.

11. Time­frame set out for min­imis­ing Bud­get deficit and re­turn­ing to bal­anced bud­get.

12. In­fla­tion sub­dued at 2.1 per cent core and 3.5 per cent head­line at April.

13. Out­fit­ting and oc­cu­pan­cy of Gov­ern­ment build­ings to re­duce rental fees.

14. VAT re­duc­tion de­creased to 12.5 per cent.

15. Per­son­al al­lowance in­creased to $72,000.

16. Phased re­duc­tion of fu­el sub­sidy and sav­ings of $340 mil­lion.

17. OJT stipends in­creased by 20 per cent.

18. Re­moval for fees for per­sons over 60 years old for dri­vers' per­mits and pass­ports.

19. Gate re­viewed to en­sure sav­ings and ef­fi­cien­cy.

20. Leg­isla­tive Agen­da for 2015-2020 pre­pared and pub­lished.

21. Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ties Amt Bill passed paving the way for im­ple­men­ta­tion.

22. Sim­pli­fied process of se­lect­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er.

23. En­force­ment of speed lim­it; no­tice­able de­cline in road fa­tal­i­ties.

24. Firm ac­tion to re­duce vi­o­lence in schools; de­cline in school vi­o­lence.

25. Na­tion­al Tri­par­tite Ad­vi­so­ry Coun­cil es­tab­lished, paving the way for greater con­sul­ta­tion.

26. Na­tion­al Sta­tis­ti­cal In­sti­tute of T&T be­ing es­tab­lished.

27. Land­mark Paris Agree­ment on cli­mate change signed.

28. Co-op­er­a­tion agree­ments signed with Ghana in oil and gas.

29. Op­por­tu­ni­ties cre­at­ed to ex­pand trade in­to Venezuela.

30. State vis­it to Ja­maica to avert a po­ten­tial for­eign re­la­tions cri­sis.

31. Cut out wastage in the de­liv­ery of food cards.

32. Im­proved work­ing re­la­tion­ship with To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA).

33. Com­menced the hous­ing pro­gramme un­der the HDC.

34. Paid Ca­roni work­ers out­stand­ing mon­ey.

35. Shut­down of Spe­cial An­ti-Crime Unit (SAUTT).

36. In­sult­ed Ja­maicans (ATM ma­chines slur).

37. In­sult­ed St Lu­cians in de­spair when in hur­ri­cane they were told that in or­der to get aid from T&T they must agree to buy from us.