Prin­ci­ple, pur­pose and a com­mit­ment to the pub­lic good.

These will be the ob­jec­tives of Dr Mar­lene Attzs in her role an an In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor.

A de­vel­op­ment econ­o­mist, Attzs in a wide-rang­ing in­ter­view, shared with the Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian the crit­i­cal ar­eas of con­cern she in­tends to bring to Par­lia­ment.

“I’ve been re­flect­ing on sev­er­al pri­or­i­ty ar­eas, par­tic­u­lar­ly our per­sis­tent fis­cal chal­lenges and the need for strate­gic so­lu­tions to our so­cio-eco­nom­ic and en­vi­ron­men­tal vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties,” she ex­plained.

Con­cerns af­fect­ing women and the vul­ner­a­ble are al­so ex­pect­ed to be brought to the fore.

“While I cer­tain­ly in­tend to sup­port mat­ters af­fect­ing women, my ad­vo­ca­cy will fo­cus more broad­ly on is­sues im­pact­ing vul­ner­a­ble groups - those whose liveli­hoods are most pre­car­i­ous and whose needs are of­ten over­looked.

“If we are to strength­en fam­i­lies, com­mu­ni­ties and our na­tion as a whole, we must de­sign sys­tems that not on­ly pro­tect but al­so em­pow­er our most at-risk cit­i­zens. Re­silience and in­clu­sion can­not be buzz­words; they must be built in­to the very fab­ric of our pol­i­cy land­scape,” Attzs de­tailed.

The econ­o­mist al­so spoke about her rec­om­men­da­tions to ad­dress these chal­lenges as she out­lined that such is­sues de­mand courage, in­no­va­tion, the gump­tion and will­ing­ness to do things dif­fer­ent­ly.

“We must look be­yond tra­di­tion­al sec­tors for in­vest­ment, fast-track dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion and re­align our ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem to equip the fu­ture work­force with rel­e­vant skills. We al­so must al­so shift the na­tion­al mind­set to en­cour­age those who wish to pur­sue ca­reers in so-called non-tra­di­tion­al sec­tors; whether as cre­atives, seam­stress­es, make­up artists, hair­styl­ists, or dig­i­tal con­tent pro­duc­ers. Those ca­reer paths are both valid and valu­able,” Attzs em­pha­sised.

She fur­ther stat­ed that when she sees this coun­try’s young artistes tour­ing glob­al­ly and mak­ing their mark, she is filled with im­mense pride and re­mind­ed of the po­ten­tial with­in T&T’s cre­ative econ­o­my.

“It is time we build an en­abling en­vi­ron­ment where en­tre­pre­neur­ship and cul­tur­al in­dus­tries are not just sup­port­ed but cel­e­brat­ed,” Attzs main­tained.

At the core of this trans­for­ma­tion, she said, must be a gov­er­nance cul­ture an­chored in ac­count­abil­i­ty, da­ta-in­formed de­ci­sion-mak­ing and an un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to pub­lic ser­vice.

Attzs was ap­point­ed In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor on May 23, 2025.

De­scrib­ing this as “quite a sur­prise and a deeply hum­bling mo­ment,” Attzs ex­pressed her grat­i­tude for the op­por­tu­ni­ty, not­ing that she’s keen­ly aware of the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty that comes with the ap­point­ment as it is en­shrined in the Con­sti­tu­tion.

“It’s a call to na­tion­al ser­vice - an af­fir­ma­tion that the qui­et work is still recog­nised. It was al­so a re­minder that one can serve mean­ing­ful­ly out­side of po­lit­i­cal par­ty struc­tures. I think that is what is most ap­peal­ing,” she said.

How­ev­er, Attzs said she has al­ways been will­ing to serve the coun­try, though she nev­er imag­ined it would be in Par­lia­ment, stat­ing that her pub­lic ser­vice has large­ly been through acad­e­mia and pub­lic ad­vo­ca­cy.

“I view the Sen­ate as a place where ideas meet leg­is­la­tion, and where voic­es can shape the di­rec­tion of a na­tion. It is re­al­ly hum­bling and tru­ly an ho­n­our to serve in this ca­pac­i­ty,” said Attzs, who has served as head of the De­part­ment of Eco­nom­ics and deputy dean of the Fac­ul­ty of So­cial Sci­ences, UWI St Au­gus­tine.

Attzs was not al­ways a de­vel­op­ment econ­o­mist.

Be­fore start­ing uni­ver­si­ty, she worked in the pub­lic ser­vice as a clerk and even­tu­al­ly as sec­re­tary to a high­ly re­spect­ed pub­lic ser­vant at the time, Frank Ram­per­sad, him­self an econ­o­mist.

He en­cour­aged her to pur­sue a de­gree in eco­nom­ics.

“While study­ing part-time at UWI, I was for­tu­nate to be taught by lec­tur­ers who were not on­ly aca­d­e­mics, but al­so pro­fes­sion­als deeply in­volved in na­tion­al and re­gion­al de­vel­op­ment is­sues - pub­lic fi­nance, en­vi­ron­men­tal pol­i­cy, con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form, en­er­gy, health, civ­il so­ci­ety and sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment. That ex­po­sure helped me un­der­stand that eco­nom­ics is far more than num­bers and the­o­ry. It is a dis­ci­pline ground­ed in peo­ple’s lived re­al­i­ties.

“A quote by No­bel lau­re­ate Sir Arthur Lewis, him­self of Caribbean (St Lu­cia) ori­gin, al­ways stayed with me: ‘The fun­da­men­tal pur­pose of eco­nom­ics is to im­prove the con­di­tions un­der which peo­ple live.’ That, for me, was a pow­er­ful re­de­f­i­n­i­tion of the field, es­pe­cial­ly for us in the Caribbean,” Attzs said.

Over time, she found her­self nat­u­ral­ly grav­i­tat­ing to de­vel­op­ment eco­nom­ics, a space to analyse com­plex struc­tur­al is­sues while imag­in­ing and ad­vo­cat­ing for prac­ti­cal, peo­ple-cen­tred so­lu­tions.

Root­ed in a be­lief that “we” in the Caribbean could build more in­clu­sive, eq­ui­table, and re­silient so­ci­eties, if hu­man dig­ni­ty is placed at the cen­tre of eco­nom­ic think­ing and pub­lic pol­i­cy, Attzs has since been us­ing her knowl­edge to trans­form T&T for the bet­ter.

“Over the years, I’ve had the priv­i­lege of con­tribut­ing to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment through sev­er­al av­enues. Through aca­d­e­m­ic teach­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, I’ve tried to help shape the minds of the next gen­er­a­tion of econ­o­mists and pub­lic ser­vants. I’ve en­gaged in pub­lic ad­vo­ca­cy through writ­ing, speak­ing, and par­tic­i­pat­ing in fo­rums that bring dif­fer­ent in­sights to pub­lic de­bate.

“Whether through sem­i­nars, me­dia com­men­tary, or men­tor­ship, I have tried to trans­form lives by ground­ing eco­nom­ics and eco­nom­ic the­o­ry in a space where the av­er­age cit­i­zen feels com­fort­able—un­der­stand­ing that eco­nom­ics is about them, about us—not about a par­tic­u­lar ‘Gov­ern­ment’ or a par­tic­u­lar ‘Min­is­ter of Fi­nance.’

Last year, I had a post-bud­get con­ver­sa­tion with some fifth and sixth for­m­ers and I think they were tak­en aback when I told them the bud­get is not about their par­ents or about the Gov­ern­ment – it’s about them,” she said.

Who is Dr Mar­lene Attzs

Born and raised in South Trinidad, she is the youngest of four chil­dren.

Her par­ents placed great em­pha­sis on a “good” ed­u­ca­tion, but al­so on a spir­i­tu­al foun­da­tion, dis­ci­pline, hard work, and gen­er­al­ly striv­ing to be a good per­son.

That ground­ing, Attzs shared, has shaped her per­son­al­ly and pro­fes­sion­al­ly.

Re­gard­ing her nu­mer­ous ed­u­ca­tion­al ac­com­plish­ments, she pur­sued both her un­der­grad­u­ate and Mas­ter’s de­grees in eco­nom­ics at UWI, St Au­gus­tine, and was lat­er award­ed a Com­mon­wealth Schol­ar­ship to un­der­take a split-site PhD at Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege Lon­don (UCL).

This was marked her jour­ney in­to the field of eco­nom­ics.

“At UCL, I had the priv­i­lege of be­ing su­per­vised by Prof David Pearce, the first econ­o­mist to fo­cus sub­stan­tive­ly on the eco­nom­ics of cli­mate change, an in­ter­na­tion­al­ly renowned in­tel­lec­tu­al fig­ure. His work went be­yond eco­nom­ic mod­el­ling to ex­plore how cli­mate change im­pacts peo­ple, com­mu­ni­ties, and liveli­hoods. This per­spec­tive res­onat­ed with me and fu­elled my pas­sion for de­vel­op­ment eco­nom­ics, es­pe­cial­ly with­in the con­text of the Caribbean. It helped me see even more clear­ly how vul­ner­a­ble our so­ci­eties are, not just eco­nom­i­cal­ly, but al­so so­cial­ly and en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly, and the im­por­tance of craft­ing so­lu­tions that are both con­text-spe­cif­ic and peo­ple-cen­tred,” Attzs shared.

What’s next for Dr Mar­lene Attzs in terms of as­pi­ra­tions?

“I’m tak­ing it five min­utes at a time… lol,” she said adding, “I’m still in­ter­nal­is­ing the Sen­ate and learn­ing how to nav­i­gate that space. This new re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, to­geth­er with my con­tin­ued work at the uni­ver­si­ty, re­mains my im­me­di­ate pri­or­i­ty.”

That said, she al­so wel­comes any op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­tribute to our col­lec­tive na­tion­al and re­gion­al de­vel­op­ment.

Whether through pol­i­cy, schol­ar­ship, or ser­vice, Attzs hopes to keep cre­at­ing space for and caus­ing na­tion­als of this coun­try to col­lec­tive­ly imag­ine in­clu­sive growth, es­pe­cial­ly for those at the mar­gins.

“Ul­ti­mate­ly, I be­lieve that my work, wher­ev­er it takes me, must re­main ground­ed in val­ues, in­tegri­ty, and love for peo­ple. I bor­row from Pat Bish­op who ‘fa­mous­ly’ said, “Un­til all have crossed, none has crossed.” – I want to con­tribute to what helps us all even­tu­al­ly “cross” – wher­ev­er an in­di­vid­ual might be in that jour­ney.

“I be­lieve there is much that is good and worth cel­e­brat­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go, but I’m equal­ly mind­ful that se­ri­ous chal­lenges are ahead. I hope, through the Sen­ate, to am­pli­fy and repli­cate what is pos­i­tive and to con­tribute mean­ing­ful­ly to re­solv­ing the ar­eas that re­quire change,” she added.