Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert’s state­ment yes­ter­day, which paint­ed a grim pic­ture of this coun­try’s econ­o­my, was noth­ing more than a “cheap dis­trac­tion” to take away from the on­go­ing na­tion­al out­rage caused by the mur­der of An­drea Bharatt, econ­o­mist Mar­la Dukha­ran said.

Dukha­ran com­ment­ed yes­ter­day on the sit­u­a­tion in re­sponse to a ques­tion from Guardian Me­dia seek­ing her view on Im­bert’s re­port of se­ri­ous eco­nom­ic chal­lenges fac­ing the coun­try.

“Noth­ing the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance said to­day even be­gins to ad­dress the long-stand­ing, fun­da­men­tal is­sues our coun­try faces,” Dukha­ran stat­ed.

“As far as I am con­cerned, eco­nom­ics on­ly mat­ters in so far as it speaks to so­cial out­comes, and so­cial­ly, T&T is an ab­solute­ly per­ilous state. Yet, noth­ing was said on this mat­ter,” she said.

Dukha­ran said in her view to com­ment on Im­bert’s state­ment would be dis­cour­te­ous to Bharatt.

“In my view, to com­ment on this state­ment is to dis­re­spect An­drea Bharatt, to dis­re­gard the pri­ma­cy of her mur­der and the cul­ture of im­puni­ty that re­wards crim­i­nals and ter­ror­izes the rest of us in T&T, and to sup­port the usu­al dis­trac­tion agen­da of this and suc­ces­sive Gov­ern­ments which are ab­solute­ly bereft of so­lu­tions,” Dukha­ran stat­ed.

Dukha­ran added there are se­ri­ous ques­tions sur­round­ing Bharatt’s mur­der and a pos­si­ble link to the ju­di­cia­ry.

“For our Gov­ern­ment to is­sue any state­ment at this time, which does not ad­dress these fun­da­men­tal is­sues, is an in­sult, is a cheap at­tempt at dis­trac­tion, and is ul­ti­mate­ly an ad­mis­sion of fail­ure,” she said.