Since the grant­i­ng of uni­ver­sal suf­frage, T&T elec­tions have re­volved on per­son­al­i­ty and tribe. In more re­cent times crit­i­cal de­vel­op­ment is­sues have been rel­e­gat­ed to the side­lines. The 2020 cam­paign will not be dif­fer­ent; the usu­al themes, cor­rup­tion, race and the econ­o­my, have al­ready been de­ployed with long-term sur­vival is­sues triv­i­alised. Yet since 1956, no one has been suc­cess­ful­ly pros­e­cut­ed for cor­rup­tion, or abuse of pub­lic of­fice, de­spite a pletho­ra of leg­isla­tive changes; the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act, Pro­ceeds of Crime Act, FIU, a new Pro­cure­ment Act (not ful­ly pro­claimed) to name a few.

In­deed, every elec­tion is pre­ced­ed by an­nounce­ments of new con­tracts to build new roads and resur­face ex­ist­ing ones, new pub­lic hous­ing etc, re­gard­less of which par­ty is in gov­ern­ment. Elec­tions have to be fi­nanced, I guess.

But in­fra­struc­tur­al de­vel­op­ment, ed­u­ca­tion, health care, and the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus al­so have to be paid for This week the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s re­port shows the Con­sol­i­dat­ed Fund at an over­draft of $40.2 bil­lion. Last week the full im­pli­ca­tion of “pru­dent” fi­nan­cial and eco­nom­ic man­age­ment was on dis­play. He­li­copters that cost bil­lions were “non-op­er­a­tional” due to lack of fund­ing to pro­vide ad­e­quate main­te­nance. The same for the Coast Guard fleet, the non-func­tion­ing radar sys­tem all of which are meant to op­er­ate in sync. So much for se­cur­ing our bor­ders. The same is true of the To­ba­go fer­ry main­te­nance. And this is the rea­son why the Cou­va hos­pi­tal re­mains un­opened.

There is not enough mon­ey to pay salaries and meet all the oth­er com­mit­ments as well. Rather than hy­po­thet­i­cal “sav­ings” from ex­pen­di­ture cur­tail­ment, the Gov­ern­ment has in ef­fect bor­rowed from con­trac­tors, tax­pay­ers (by not pay­ing re­funds) and even pub­lic ser­vants by not pay­ing in­cre­ments that are due. The Fi­nance Min­is­ter is in a bind; he has bor­rowed to fund re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­tures (salaries and oth­er op­er­at­ing cost) and has reached the point where he can­not raise tax­es; to do so will chase in­vest­ment away.

Hence the im­por­tance of a find­ing a “turn­around” even where we are on­ly at a turn­ing point. Gov­ern­ment gets rev­enue by tax­ing the prof­its of suc­cess­ful busi­ness­es and the cit­i­zens that work in those cor­po­ra­tions. That is why fa­cil­i­tat­ing busi­ness and pro­vid­ing an en­abling en­vi­ron­ment mat­ter. If busi­ness­es (the en­er­gy sec­tor cor­po­ra­tions too) don’t grow, then gov­ern­ment ex­pen­di­tures can­not grow. Bor­row­ing is on­ly a tem­po­rary mea­sure as loans have to be re­paid.

The dilem­ma fac­ing the Gov­ern­ment (the coun­try) is that the coun­try’s key eco­nom­ic as­sets are age­ing and must work hard­er to main­tain the rev­enue flows. T&T is a ma­ture ge­o­log­i­cal province. New oil and gas dis­cov­er­ies have been made else­where. The USA has now be­come an ex­porter of LNG and oil and new, more ef­fi­cient petro­chem­i­cal plants are be­ing built which make them more com­pet­i­tive, and there­fore more prof­itable that those in T&T. The ma­jor­i­ty of T&T's petro­chem­i­cal plants were built in the late 70s or ear­ly 80s, apart from the new Mit­subishi plant mak­ing these plants 30-40 years old. AL­NG’s Train 1 is over 20 years old and was to be re­fur­bished lat­er this year. And gas is no longer cheap to pro­duce and even main­tain­ing out­put is chal­leng­ing as BPTT’s re­cent an­nounce­ment so am­ply demon­strat­ed.

The clo­sure/re­struc­tur­ing of Petrotrin and the lack of fi­nan­cial and tech­ni­cal ca­pac­i­ty to un­der­take new in­vest­ment adds to the com­plex­i­ty which would face any gov­ern­ment. Even if joint ven­ture part­ners are found to make these new en­ti­ties func­tion more ef­fi­cient­ly, it will re­quire a five-sev­en-year turn­around ex­er­cise be­fore any gains can be re­alised. Re­mem­ber, the steel plant and two petro­chem­i­cal plants re­main idle.

T&T is in a very chal­leng­ing sit­u­a­tion and does not have the lux­u­ry of car­ry­ing on busi­ness as usu­al, wait­ing for en­er­gy prices to re­bound. Even if prices in­crease this will on­ly give a short-term gain. The coun­try must find ad­di­tion­al ex­port ac­tiv­i­ties to move for­ward. This is a change mo­ment and re­quires a new ap­proach and eco­nom­ic re­form. But eco­nom­ic re­forms are more like­ly to fail or even be re­versed, un­less they are un­der­stood, be­lieved, and ac­cept­ed by those whom they af­fect. Com­mu­ni­ca­tion is im­por­tant but can nev­er be a sub­sti­tute for good poli­cies.

The coun­try can­not af­ford a To­co Port, or a Dry­dock or a San­dals ho­tel with­out an in­de­pen­dent fea­si­bil­i­ty study which es­tab­lish­es a vi­able busi­ness case. Where are the in­cen­tives to in­crease ex­plo­ration, to build an en­er­gy ser­vices sec­tor to ser­vice the world not mere­ly T&T? The re­al re­source of a coun­try is its peo­ple, their skills and ap­ti­tudes, train­ing lev­els and the de­ter­mi­na­tion to ad­dress the chal­lenges the world or­der sets us. Yet last week, the Fi­nance Min­is­ter in­di­cat­ed that he will again ig­nore the NIB Ac­tu­ar­i­al re­ports rec­om­men­da­tions which have been re­peat­ed for the last six years.

The blame game is un­pro­duc­tive as each side can in­flame the base against the oth­er side’s in­iq­ui­ties with no fo­cus on the sys­temic changes that must be adopt­ed. “Show tri­als” and oth­er glad­i­a­to­r­i­al games achieve noth­ing. Cor­rup­tion must be dealt with by chang­ing the sys­tem to mea­sure out­comes and hold peo­ple ac­count­able. The cyn­i­cism that pass­es for lead­er­ship can­not achieve progress. Poli­cies, plans, and pro­grammes, com­pli­ment­ed by pa­tient and con­sis­tent fol­low through, mat­ter.