JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Tuesday, July 8, 2025

Right concerns. Any real choice?

by

Guardian Media
1803 days ago
20200801

The re­cent elec­tion poll com­mis­sioned by Guardian Me­dia has shown that what is wor­ry­ing vot­ers the most are poor pub­lic util­i­ties and un­em­ploy­ment. The third most im­por­tant is­sue iden­ti­fied through the poll con­duct­ed by HHB & As­so­ciates is about youth train­ing and de­vel­op­ment.

The out­come of the sur­vey may not be sur­pris­ing, as we are all be­com­ing painful­ly aware of the po­ten­tial­ly dev­as­tat­ing im­pact on jobs by the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic. And, when it comes to pub­lic util­i­ties, we know all too well how poor ser­vices like wa­ter and elec­tric­i­ty are.

Both is­sues share some com­mon threads, though, to­geth­er with the ques­tion over youth train­ing and de­vel­op­ment. The main one be­ing the way we han­dle em­ploy­ment in the coun­try.

The pop­u­la­tion ought to be wor­ried about un­em­ploy­ment, even though T&T has, so far, avoid­ed the kind of rise in job­less­ness seen in many coun­tries around the world.

As much as some union lead­ers would like to de­ny it, the rel­a­tive­ly low num­ber of ad­di­tion­al job loss­es so far has been pri­mar­i­ly down to em­ploy­ers in T&T do­ing their very best to avoid re­trench­ment de­spite the hit they have been tak­ing since the be­gin­ning of the pan­dem­ic.

How­ev­er, this may not be sus­tain­able, es­pe­cial­ly if the world ends up fac­ing an even longer pe­ri­od of un­cer­tain­ty over new in­fec­tion spikes, adding to the depth and length of a glob­al re­ces­sion (no won­der in­vestors were spooked by the re­cent record-break­ing GDP drop in the US). None of this will make life eas­i­er for the young ei­ther, as we dis­cussed in last week’s col­umn.

And, as far as pub­lic util­i­ties are con­cerned, the prob­lem here is not lack of em­ploy­ment but the op­po­site: too much of it. We all know that bloat­ed pay­rolls and poor per­for­mance man­age­ment are the norm, not the ex­cep­tion, in our state-owned com­pa­nies. On top of that, their typ­i­cal­ly poor man­age­ment stan­dards, un­fair sub­si­dies and un­re­al­is­tic pric­ing don’t help at all.

But here is the prob­lem we face: de­spite vot­ers telling us what is trou­bling them the most, our main po­lit­i­cal par­ties are en­ter­ing the fi­nal phase of the cam­paign­ing with­out clear and re­al­is­tic plans to tack­le these prob­lems.

We have all heard lofty promis­es of im­proved state ser­vices be­fore. Or more em­ploy­ment, usu­al­ly by land­ing tax­pay­ers with even high­er li­a­bil­i­ties through poor­ly de­vised and ex­e­cut­ed pro­grammes or projects.

But the fact is that none of these is­sues that are trou­bling vot­ers will be sort­ed by the quick fix­es or pain­less so­lu­tions lead­ers from all sides of the po­lit­i­cal spec­trum tend to ped­dle ahead of elec­tions.

What we re­al­ly need are deep­er and mean­ing­ful im­prove­ments to our labour laws. We must con­sid­er­ably im­prove our in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions en­vi­ron­ment by mod­ernising our le­gal frame­work and en­sur­ing we have the kind of dy­nam­ic jobs mar­ket that is es­sen­tial for the growth of mod­ern economies.

Fun­da­men­tal rights for work­ers must be main­tained–this is not about a com­plete­ly un­reg­u­lat­ed and po­ten­tial­ly un­fair labour mar­ket. But this is about en­sur­ing busi­ness and jobs can move with the times, adapt as need­ed and con­tin­u­al­ly in­vest in skills de­vel­op­ment for them to re­main com­pet­i­tive in a glob­al mar­ket.

The pan­dem­ic makes the need for re­form even greater, as coun­tries around the world will ag­gres­sive­ly seek to kick-start their economies and gain new mar­kets for their prod­ucts and ser­vices.

Changes to our labour laws, to­geth­er with the po­lit­i­cal will by who­ev­er wins the elec­tions, can al­so make a sig­nif­i­cant im­pact on how our state com­pa­nies are run and how ef­fi­cient they can be.

In the Gov­ern­ment’s la-la-land, there are no per­for­mance met­rics re­quired and in­fla­tion is al­ways ze­ro when it comes to their pric­ing, whilst in­fla­tion is al­ways high when it comes to salary in­creas­es.

State-owned com­pa­nies of­ten of­fer the best terms and con­di­tions in the coun­try–at the ex­pense of the tax­pay­er–whilst pro­vid­ing the worst in terms of qual­i­ty and re­li­a­bil­i­ty.

That can hap­pen be­cause they are of­ten mo­nop­o­lies, with the pub­lic hav­ing no al­ter­na­tive. Af­ter all, you can’t get elec­tric­i­ty or wa­ter with­out hav­ing to en­gage with T&TEC and WASA, ir­re­spec­tive of their per­for­mance.

And, in a typ­i­cal­ly pop­ulist ap­proach, the Gov­ern­ment is al­ways re­luc­tant to charge a fair amount for these ser­vices, with prices left un­touched for years if not decades. Of­ten, state com­pa­nies pay to de­liv­er the ser­vices they charge you for, cre­at­ing an opaque and un­fair sub­sidy sys­tem, with true costs hid­den and the state ef­fec­tive­ly sub­si­dis­ing the rates ir­re­spec­tive of whether the user is a mil­lion­aire or a pau­per.

There is still a chance we will hear grown-up, in­tel­li­gent and hon­est pro­pos­als by our po­lit­i­cal lead­ers to deal with the re­al is­sues that need tack­ling if we are to grow in a sus­tain­able and eq­ui­table way.

The like­li­hood is small, though, at least if judged by usu­al mud­sling­ing, al­le­ga­tions of bobol and bac­cha­nal, and pop­ulist, un­re­al­is­tic pledges that are al­ready very much present on this cam­paign trail.

So much was said about how the pan­dem­ic could be­come a wa­ter­shed mo­ment, an op­por­tu­ni­ty to rad­i­cal­ly change for the bet­ter the way we do things. From what we have seen so far in these elec­tions, our po­lit­i­cal par­ties have shown lit­tle or no in­ter­est in do­ing so.

It doesn’t help that, in the land of the ibis and the hum­ming­bird, our po­lit­i­cal lead­ers, from all par­ties, con­tin­ue to wrong­ly think all we want to see and feed are mag­ic uni­corns in­stead.

We de­serve bet­ter choic­es, even more so when we are clear­ly not out of the pan­dem­ic’s grip yet, with a re­al and present dan­ger of more lives be­ing lost and more eco­nom­ic pain ahead, in­clud­ing job loss­es.

columnist


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored

Today's
Guardian

Publications

A model in a costume from The Lost Tribe’s 2026 presentation Island Circus

A model in a costume from The Lost Tribe’s 2026 presentation Island Circus

KERWIN PIERRE

A model in a costume from The Lost Tribe’s 2026 presentation Island Circus

A model in a costume from The Lost Tribe’s 2026 presentation Island Circus

KERWIN PIERRE

Ringmasters of the Road: Crowds flock to Tribe’s circus-themed band launch

21 hours ago
Students, principal and staff of St David’s RC Primary, along with the UWTT and Scotiabank Foundation teams at the handover of steelpans at the school.

Students, principal and staff of St David’s RC Primary, along with the UWTT and Scotiabank Foundation teams at the handover of steelpans at the school.

Students, principal and staff of St David’s RC Primary, along with the UWTT and Scotiabank Foundation teams at the handover of steelpans at the school.

Students, principal and staff of St David’s RC Primary, along with the UWTT and Scotiabank Foundation teams at the handover of steelpans at the school.

Scotiabank Foundation, United Way donate steelpans

21 hours ago
The Executive of the National Parang Association 2025-27. Back row, from left: Kervin Preudhomme, assistant secretary; Shaquille Headley, committee member; Cheriese Pierre, committee member; Lisa Lee, trustee; Joanne Briggs, PRO; Yarelis Touissant, committee member; William Calliste, trustee. Front row, from left: Jenais Carter, secretary; Alicia Jaggasar, president; Henrietta Carter, vice president; Joseph Bertrand, youth officer. Missing: Kerrylee Chee Chow, treasurer; Chevone Pierre, committee member.

The Executive of the National Parang Association 2025-27. Back row, from left: Kervin Preudhomme, assistant secretary; Shaquille Headley, committee member; Cheriese Pierre, committee member; Lisa Lee, trustee; Joanne Briggs, PRO; Yarelis Touissant, committee member; William Calliste, trustee. Front row, from left: Jenais Carter, secretary; Alicia Jaggasar, president; Henrietta Carter, vice president; Joseph Bertrand, youth officer. Missing: Kerrylee Chee Chow, treasurer; Chevone Pierre, committee member.

The Executive of the National Parang Association 2025-27. Back row, from left: Kervin Preudhomme, assistant secretary; Shaquille Headley, committee member; Cheriese Pierre, committee member; Lisa Lee, trustee; Joanne Briggs, PRO; Yarelis Touissant, committee member; William Calliste, trustee. Front row, from left: Jenais Carter, secretary; Alicia Jaggasar, president; Henrietta Carter, vice president; Joseph Bertrand, youth officer. Missing: Kerrylee Chee Chow, treasurer; Chevone Pierre, committee member.

The Executive of the National Parang Association 2025-27. Back row, from left: Kervin Preudhomme, assistant secretary; Shaquille Headley, committee member; Cheriese Pierre, committee member; Lisa Lee, trustee; Joanne Briggs, PRO; Yarelis Touissant, committee member; William Calliste, trustee. Front row, from left: Jenais Carter, secretary; Alicia Jaggasar, president; Henrietta Carter, vice president; Joseph Bertrand, youth officer. Missing: Kerrylee Chee Chow, treasurer; Chevone Pierre, committee member.

Jaggasar returns as National Parang president

Yesterday
Charles Town junior drummers and dancers take to the stage

Charles Town junior drummers and dancers take to the stage

Charles Town junior drummers and dancers take to the stage

Charles Town junior drummers and dancers take to the stage

Jamaican Maroons celebrate, question land rights

Yesterday