There is a par­tic­u­lar cru­el­ty in an­nounc­ing an in­crease in nat­ur­al gas prices at a time when peo­ple are al­ready drown­ing. Not tread­ing wa­ter, drown­ing. Bills are pil­ing up, pay­cheques are shrink­ing, jobs are dis­ap­pear­ing, and now the state-owned Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny pro­pos­es to pull the rug out from un­der an econ­o­my al­ready wob­bling on one leg. This isn’t eco­nom­ic fine-tun­ing. It’s a shock­wave, and every­one knows who will ab­sorb the im­pact: the peo­ple.

Nat­ur­al gas is not some ab­stract in­put buried deep in in­dus­tri­al ma­chin­ery. It is the blood­stream of this coun­try’s econ­o­my. It pow­ers elec­tric­i­ty. It fu­els man­u­fac­tur­ing. It touch­es trans­port, food pro­duc­tion, con­struc­tion, and al­most every ser­vice that keeps dai­ly life mov­ing. When its price jumps by three-quar­ters, it does not stay neat­ly con­fined to the in­dus­try. It moves fast, and it moves out­ward, show­ing up ex­act­ly where it al­ways does, in high­er prices, few­er jobs, and a deep­er strain on house­holds.

Man­u­fac­tur­ers are al­ready sound­ing the alarm, and with good rea­son. Many are op­er­at­ing un­der pres­sure from ris­ing costs, weak de­mand, and un­cer­tain­ty. A sud­den in­crease of this scale does not en­cour­age in­no­va­tion or ef­fi­cien­cy; it forces dam­age con­trol. Which shifts are cut? Which work­ers are sent home? Which lo­cal­ly made prod­uct be­comes too ex­pen­sive to com­pete with im­ports? These de­ci­sions may be made qui­et­ly be­hind fac­to­ry doors, but their con­se­quences will echo loud­ly through the coun­try.

And even if man­u­fac­tur­ers man­age to sur­vive this blow, or­di­nary peo­ple will not be in­su­lat­ed from its ef­fects. Be­cause the past nine months have al­ready de­liv­ered a steady stream of eco­nom­ic pun­ish­ment to work­ing house­holds. There have been thou­sands of job loss­es, par­tic­u­lar­ly among low­er-in­come earn­ers. Young peo­ple have been hit es­pe­cial­ly hard, many un­able to find work and forced in­to un­cer­tain­ty at a stage of life that should be about build­ing in­de­pen­dence and sta­bil­i­ty.

At the same time, fines and tax­es have dou­bled in ways that land hard­est on those least able to ab­sorb them. Na­tion­al In­sur­ance con­tri­bu­tions have in­creased, qui­et­ly shrink­ing take-home pay. An elec­tric­i­ty sur­charge has al­ready been im­posed on com­mer­cial and in­dus­tri­al cus­tomers. Food prices con­tin­ue to rise. Rent has be­come a source of con­stant anx­i­ety. Wages, mean­while, have large­ly stayed the same. Peo­ple are pay­ing more sim­ply to stand still.

This is the eco­nom­ic re­al­i­ty in­to which a 60-70% in­crease in nat­ur­al gas prices is now be­ing dropped.

Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials have point­ed out that the re­cent elec­tric­i­ty sur­charge ap­plies to com­mer­cial and in­dus­tri­al cus­tomers and does not con­sti­tute a for­mal rate in­crease. Even so, se­ri­ous and un­avoid­able ques­tions arise: if busi­ness­es are al­ready pay­ing a sur­charge, will a sharp rise in nat­ur­al gas prices amount to a dou­ble blow for them? And if those high­er costs are passed down, as they al­most al­ways are, will house­holds now al­so be forced to pay even high­er elec­tric­i­ty bills as the price of nat­ur­al gas ris­es? These are not alarmist ques­tions. They are log­i­cal ones, and the pub­lic de­serves clear an­swers.

En­er­gy costs do not ex­ist in iso­la­tion. When elec­tric­i­ty be­comes more ex­pen­sive to gen­er­ate, the cost of run­ning busi­ness­es ris­es. When busi­ness­es face high­er costs, prices go up, or jobs go. Trans­port be­comes more ex­pen­sive.

Goods on su­per­mar­ket shelves inch up­ward. For many house­holds, there is no cush­ion left.

What makes this pro­posed gas price in­crease es­pe­cial­ly trou­bling is that it comes from a state-owned com­pa­ny. Cit­i­zens un­der­stand that sub­si­dies can­not last for­ev­er and that fis­cal re­spon­si­bil­i­ty mat­ters. What they strug­gle to un­der­stand is why such a mas­sive ad­just­ment is be­ing pro­posed at a mo­ment when house­holds and the econ­o­my are al­ready un­der strain.

There is a dif­fer­ence be­tween re­form and shock. There is a dif­fer­ence be­tween sus­tain­abil­i­ty and up­heaval. A sud­den in­crease of this mag­ni­tude risks un­der­min­ing the very sta­bil­i­ty it claims to pro­tect. If man­u­fac­tur­ers con­tract, jobs are lost.

If jobs are lost, spend­ing falls. If spend­ing falls, busi­ness­es strug­gle. If busi­ness­es strug­gle, gov­ern­ment rev­enues de­cline. This is not the­o­ry; it is how eco­nom­ic stress spreads.

Per­haps most dam­ag­ing is the grow­ing dis­con­nect be­tween de­ci­sion-mak­ers and lived re­al­i­ty. Cit­i­zens are re­peat­ed­ly told that sac­ri­fices are nec­es­sary and that pain to­day will bring sta­bil­i­ty to­mor­row. But to­mor­row nev­er seems to ar­rive.

Eco­nom­ic pol­i­cy can­not be di­vorced from re­al lives. Tim­ing mat­ters. Scale mat­ters. Peo­ple mat­ter. A phased ap­proach, gen­uine con­sul­ta­tion, and re­al pro­tec­tion for vul­ner­a­ble house­holds are not un­rea­son­able de­mands.

They are the min­i­mum re­quired in a so­ci­ety that claims to val­ue fair­ness.

Re­silience is of­ten praised in Trinidad and To­ba­go, but re­silience is not in­fi­nite. When fam­i­lies are pushed be­yond their lim­its, the dam­age shows up every­where, in stress, in so­cial strain, and in erod­ing trust.

An econ­o­my does not ex­ist on pa­per. It ex­ists in homes, work­places, and com­mu­ni­ties, and any pol­i­cy that for­gets that does so at its own per­il.

Mick­ela Pan­day—

Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front and At­tor­ney at Law