Dr San­dra Sookram

Di­rec­tor, SALIS­ES,

UWI

This time­ly col­lec­tion asks an am­bi­tious ques­tion: af­ter six decades of in­de­pen­dence, where ex­act­ly is Trinidad and To­ba­go—and what must we do next? Across 12 da­ta-rich chap­ters, lead­ing schol­ars and prac­ti­tion­ers sur­vey the na­tion’s en­er­gy sto­ry, so­cial sec­tors, eco­nom­ic struc­ture, and gov­er­nance, then out­line a pro­gramme for re­new­al. The re­sult is an ac­ces­si­ble, of­ten brac­ing stock-take that be­longs on the desks of pol­i­cy­mak­ers and en­gaged cit­i­zens alike.

The tone is set by for­mer Chan­cel­lor Robert Bermudez’s fore­word, which sit­u­ates the book in the tur­bu­lence of re­cent years—pan­dem­ic af­ter­shocks, geopo­lit­i­cal un­cer­tain­ty, ris­ing liv­ing costs, and a per­sis­tent vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to swings in glob­al en­er­gy prices. He is frank about the gaps cit­i­zens feel dai­ly, from the ease of do­ing busi­ness to de­clin­ing re­al in­comes. He al­so high­lights a painful con­stant: record mur­der tolls in 2022 and again in 2024, which de­mand ur­gent pol­i­cy at­ten­tion.

The ed­i­tors’ in­tro­duc­tion maps the jour­ney. En­er­gy comes first—ap­pro­pri­ate­ly, for a coun­try shaped by oil and gas booms and busts. For­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Kevin Ram­nar­ine traces the arc from ear­ly off­shore dis­cov­er­ies to Point Lisas and At­lantic LNG, weigh­ing to­day’s pro­duc­tion con­straints against prospects in gas, re­new­ables, and re­gion­al mar­itime ser­vices. The treat­ment is mea­sured: nei­ther tri­umphal­ist nor fa­tal­is­tic.

Im­por­tant­ly, the book does not con­fuse GDP with de­vel­op­ment. Bhoen­dra­datt Tewarie’s chap­ter ef­fec­tive­ly em­pha­sizes the role of in­tel­lec­tu­al and so­cial cap­i­tal in build­ing hu­man de­vel­op­ment ca­pac­i­ty. Chap­ters on agri­cul­ture and food se­cu­ri­ty (Isaac, Ma­haraj, Joseph), ed­u­ca­tion (De Lisle, Bowrin-Williams, Lu­cas), health (Shar­ma, Ram­nar­ine, Teelucks­ingh), and the en­vi­ron­ment (Gob­in, Kan­hai, As­math) di­ag­nose struc­tur­al weak­ness­es and in­sti­tu­tion­al bot­tle­necks while high­light­ing suc­cess­es of­ten over­looked in the news cy­cle: falling in­fant and ma­ter­nal mor­tal­i­ty, strength­ened en­vi­ron­men­tal per­mit­ting and pub­lic-aware­ness ar­chi­tec­ture, and lessons from decades of ex­ter­nal­ly fund­ed ed­u­ca­tion re­forms.

Garvin Heer­ah’s chap­ter on crime is among the most sober­ing. It doc­u­ments the steady es­ca­la­tion of se­ri­ous of­fences since 1962, chron­i­cal­ly low de­tec­tion rates, and the evolv­ing na­ture of crim­i­nal­i­ty—gangs, cy­ber­crime, mon­ey laun­der­ing—while urg­ing an in­sti­tu­tion­al re­think of polic­ing. These se­cu­ri­ty chal­lenges do not ex­ist in iso­la­tion; they are in­ter­twined with eco­nom­ic stag­na­tion and so­cial in­equal­i­ty, cre­at­ing a vi­cious cy­cle that un­der­mines na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

The eco­nom­ic analy­sis shows how short-term pol­i­cy­mak­ing has re­peat­ed­ly sac­ri­ficed long-term sta­bil­i­ty. Two chap­ters led by Roger Ho­sein and col­leagues ex­am­ine trade pat­terns, the un­der­per­for­mance of non-en­er­gy trad­ables, and a prac­ti­cal list of choic­es to ex­pand ex­ports and ser­vices—in­clud­ing spe­cif­ic prod­uct spaces and ad­min­is­tra­tive fix­es. The To­ba­go-Trinidad analy­sis by James, Hazel, and Bis­soon an­chors pol­i­cy in pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and skills, show­ing how ed­u­ca­tion lev­els and labour dy­nam­ics shape liv­ing stan­dards.

A stark fis­cal as­sess­ment dis­tils a decade’s worth of hard lessons. It chron­i­cles how trans­fers and sub­si­dies have re­peat­ed­ly out­paced en­er­gy rev­enues since the late 2000s, crowd­ing out growth and mask­ing weak­ness in non-en­er­gy sec­tors. The au­thors’ pre­scrip­tions—rules-based fis­cal tar­gets, lib­er­al­iz­ing the for­eign-ex­change mar­ket, tight­en­ing over­sight of state-owned en­ter­pris­es, and pro­duc­tive­ly de­ploy­ing Venezue­lan im­mi­grant labour, es­pe­cial­ly in agri­cul­ture and man­u­fac­tur­ing—are bound to spark de­bate, which is pre­cise­ly the point.

The clos­ing con­tri­bu­tion, by Tewarie, fo­cus­es on strength­en­ing in­sti­tu­tions and de­liv­ery. Be­yond sec­toral fix­es, it em­pha­sizes clear rules, ro­bust pro­cure­ment, in­de­pen­dent over­sight, and con­ti­nu­ity of pro­grammes across ad­min­is­tra­tions to sus­tain progress. It al­so high­lights dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion and the de­vel­op­ment of da­ta, skills, and oth­er in­tan­gi­ble as­sets as foun­da­tions for long-term re­silience. The call for con­sti­tu­tion­al mod­ern­iza­tion and stronger ac­count­abil­i­ty mech­a­nisms is pre­sent­ed not as ab­stract the­o­ry, but as prac­ti­cal ne­ces­si­ty for a na­tion that can no longer af­ford busi­ness as usu­al.

Per­haps the most fun­da­men­tal con­tri­bu­tion of Six­ty Years of In­de­pen­dence is its for­ward-look­ing per­spec­tive. The book does not mere­ly di­ag­nose prob­lems; it of­fers a range of thought­ful and prag­mat­ic pro­pos­als for the road ahead. From re­think­ing ap­proach­es to man­u­fac­tur­ing to up­dat­ing gov­er­nance frame­works, the au­thors pro­vide a roadmap for a more pros­per­ous and eq­ui­table fu­ture. For any­one who be­lieves in the promise of Trinidad and To­ba­go, this vol­ume is an in­dis­pens­able guide to un­der­stand­ing the chal­lenges we face and the op­por­tu­ni­ties that lie ahead. It is a call to ac­tion, a prompt for re­flec­tion, and a bea­con of hope for a na­tion at a cross­roads.

In short, Six­ty Years of In­de­pen­dence is not a nos­tal­gia piece. It is a mea­sured ap­praisal and a prac­ti­cal roadmap. It rec­og­nizes achieve­ments, names mis­steps, and re­fus­es to in­dulge the com­fort­ing myths that have too of­ten stalled re­form. For a na­tion that must now turn from di­ag­no­sis to de­liv­ery, this book is a wel­come nudge—ev­i­dence-based, for­ward-look­ing, and firm­ly lo­cal in its sen­si­bil­i­ties.