Raphael John-Lall

Six­ty-four years af­ter in­de­pen­dence, T&T stands at a crit­i­cal de­vel­op­men­tal cross­road, with its tra­di­tion­al en­er­gy-based mod­el fac­ing grow­ing pres­sure and the need for di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion be­com­ing in­creas­ing­ly ur­gent.

Econ­o­mists and for­mer pol­i­cy­mak­ers, re­flect­ing on the coun­try’s jour­ney since 1962, agree that while T&T has achieved sig­nif­i­cant eco­nom­ic and so­cial progress, much of its po­ten­tial re­mains un­re­alised.

The ex­perts who spoke to the Busi­ness Guardian for this In­de­pen­dence Day an­niver­sary see the coun­try at an im­por­tant junc­ture in its de­vel­op­ment, where se­ri­ous de­ci­sions must be made about the fu­ture.

A na­tion still grow­ing

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor, Dr Mar­lene Attzs, who is an econ­o­mist, be­lieves T&T should re­sist the temp­ta­tion to la­bel its 64-year eco­nom­ic jour­ney ei­ther a suc­cess or a fail­ure.

“I would re­sist de­scrib­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go af­ter 64 years of In­de­pen­dence as ei­ther an eco­nom­ic ‘suc­cess’ or ‘fail­ure’. I pre­fer to think of us as a na­tion still be­com­ing,” she said.

Attzs said the coun­try’s achieve­ments should nev­er­the­less be recog­nised, point­ing to im­prove­ments in ed­u­ca­tion, health­care, in­fra­struc­ture and eco­nom­ic ca­pac­i­ty, as well as T&T’s rel­a­tive­ly high po­si­tion on the Unit­ed Na­tions Hu­man De­vel­op­ment In­dex.

“T&T to­day is vast­ly dif­fer­ent from the coun­try that hoist­ed its flag in 1962. Our ad­vances in ed­u­ca­tion, health­care, in­fra­struc­ture and eco­nom­ic ca­pac­i­ty — and our rel­a­tive­ly high UN Hu­man De­vel­op­ment In­dex — con­firm that progress.”

But she qual­i­fied that by say­ing de­vel­op­ment must be as­sessed not on­ly by what the coun­try has achieved, but by what it could have achieved giv­en its sub­stan­tial nat­ur­al re­sources and hu­man tal­ent.

“Oil and gas do not them­selves de­vel­op coun­tries; peo­ple do. Re­sources pro­vide rev­enues and op­por­tu­ni­ties, but it is the knowl­edge, pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, cre­ativ­i­ty and en­ter­prise of our peo­ple — and, im­por­tant­ly, the in­sti­tu­tions we build — that ul­ti­mate­ly de­ter­mine what a na­tion be­comes.”

For Attzs, the next stage re­quires greater pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, in­clu­sion and re­silience, with cit­i­zens play­ing a cen­tral role.

“At 64, we’ve come a long way, but our great­est as­set re­mains our peo­ple.”

She al­so re­ferred to the na­tion­al watch­words of Dis­ci­pline, Pro­duc­tion and Tol­er­ance as prin­ci­ples that re­main rel­e­vant to the coun­try’s eco­nom­ic fu­ture.

“In­de­pen­dence was a mile­stone. De­vel­op­ment re­mains un­fin­ished busi­ness — and we all have a part in fin­ish­ing it,” she said.

Time for re­flec­tion

For­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter and for­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young de­scribed T&T’s 64th an­niver­sary as a “re­flec­tion point,” ar­gu­ing that the coun­try must re­assess the eco­nom­ic mod­el that served it well for decades.

Young said the de­ci­sion to build an econ­o­my around nat­ur­al gas gen­er­at­ed sub­stan­tial growth and de­vel­op­ment, but de­clin­ing gas re­serves mean T&T can no longer as­sume that mod­el will re­main suf­fi­cient in­def­i­nite­ly.

“It is clear that whilst some past de­ci­sions se­cured growth and de­vel­op­ment, for ex­am­ple, mov­ing to a nat­ur­al gas-based econ­o­my, the na­tion now needs to re­assess what is next as the gas re­serves have de­clined.”

He be­lieves the coun­try still has op­por­tu­ni­ties with­in the en­er­gy sec­tor but must si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly de­vel­op new sources of in­come.

“Cit­i­zens need to de­cide what does T&T piv­ot to­wards to en­sure sus­tain­abil­i­ty,” he said. “T&T still has op­por­tu­ni­ties to main­tain the en­er­gy-based sec­tor, but we should seek to de­vel­op oth­er rev­enue-gen­er­at­ing in­dus­tries, for ex­am­ple our mar­itime in­dus­try.”

Young al­so ar­gued that the coun­try’s po­lit­i­cal cul­ture and gov­er­nance will have a di­rect bear­ing on its eco­nom­ic per­for­mance.

“If we do not change the type of pol­i­tics that is prac­tised in T&T, we will find our­selves left be­hind and the prob­lems of failed gov­er­nance and failed promis­es will un­for­tu­nate­ly over­whelm our econ­o­my,” he said.

He of­fered a crit­i­cal as­sess­ment of the cur­rent Gov­ern­ment’s record, ar­gu­ing that there has been in­suf­fi­cient move­ment out­side the tra­di­tion­al eco­nom­ic frame­work.

“There has been ab­solute­ly no de­vel­op­ment in any area of our econ­o­my save for the en­er­gy sec­tor in the last 16 months and not a sin­gle ini­tia­tive in the en­er­gy sec­tor is that of the UNC Gov­ern­ment.”

Get­ting it right

For­mer plan­ning min­is­ter in the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment, Dr Bhoe Tewarie, al­so re­jects the de­scrip­tion of T&T as an eco­nom­ic fail­ure, but gave the view that it would be dif­fi­cult to call the coun­try’s 64-year jour­ney a suc­cess.

“From an eco­nom­ic stand­point, I don’t think that it would be rea­son­able to cat­e­gorise T&T as a fail­ure. We have a rel­a­tive­ly good per capi­ta in­come, we are strong on hu­man de­vel­op­ment in­dices and we are as­sessed as a high mid­dle in­come coun­try.

“At the same time, it would be some­thing of a stretch to de­scribe our eco­nom­ic jour­ney over 64 years as a suc­cess. We have stum­bled a lot.”

Tewarie said T&T com­pares favourably with many coun­tries that have crossed the 60-year mark since In­de­pen­dence. How­ev­er, the coun­try’s per­for­mance looks weak­er when com­pared with na­tions that suc­cess­ful­ly trans­formed them­selves in­to com­pet­i­tive economies.

“Among coun­tries which have crossed 60 years of In­de­pen­dence, we are bet­ter off than most, but it does not war­rant our beat­ing our chest about it,” he said.

He point­ed specif­i­cal­ly to Sin­ga­pore and South Ko­rea as ex­am­ples of economies that built com­pet­i­tive ex­port in­dus­tries around hu­man cap­i­tal, tech­nol­o­gy and in­no­va­tion.

“These two coun­tries suc­ceed­ed by build­ing com­pet­i­tive, ex­port-dri­ven economies, around hu­man cap­i­tal and tech­no­log­i­cal in­no­va­tion. T&T on the oth­er hand re­lied on the fi­nite en­er­gy sec­tor.”

Tewarie be­lieves Venezue­lan nat­ur­al gas could pro­vide T&T with an im­por­tant op­por­tu­ni­ty — but on­ly if the coun­try us­es the pe­ri­od ahead to trans­form its wider eco­nom­ic struc­ture.

“As we wait in T&T for Venezue­lan nat­ur­al gas, the struc­tur­al eco­nom­ic weak­ness­es are star­ing us in the face again and we must find a way to get it right this time.”

He be­lieves the gov­ern­ment should use the pe­ri­od from now through 2028 to de­vel­op a di­ver­si­fied ex­port econ­o­my, up­skill the work­force and at­tract non-en­er­gy in­vest­ment.

“The Gov­ern­ment can use the rest of 2026, 2027 and 2028 to build out a di­ver­si­fied ex­port econ­o­my and up­skill our work­force to take us high­er up the val­ue chain. It might be our last re­al chance. And it might prove to be our best op­por­tu­ni­ty.”

Deep­er struc­tur­al prob­lems

Af­ter 64 years of in­de­pen­dence, econ­o­mist Dr Vanus James ar­gues that the coun­try’s suc­cess should ul­ti­mate­ly be mea­sured by whether it has cre­at­ed strong in­sti­tu­tions, elim­i­nat­ed un­der­em­ploy­ment, achieved sus­tained in­ter­na­tion­al com­pet­i­tive­ness and es­caped what he de­scribes as the “en­clave econ­o­my” in­her­it­ed from the colo­nial sug­ar era.

“If cit­i­zens mea­sure on the ba­sis of its cre­ation of an im­proved in­sti­tu­tion­al ecosys­tem, elim­i­na­tion of Lewisian un­der­em­ploy­ment, growth with de­vel­op­ment to achieve ris­ing in­ter­na­tion­al com­pet­i­tive­ness and es­cape from the clutch­es of the en­clave econ­o­my in­her­it­ed from colo­nial sug­ar, then T&T is an eco­nom­ic fail­ure.”

He re­ferred to re­peat­ed eco­nom­ic down­turns as ev­i­dence that the coun­try has failed to re­solve its fun­da­men­tal struc­tur­al prob­lems.

“Look at the col­lapse of the econ­o­my be­tween 2015 and 2025 and look back over the decades to see how many times the same thing has hap­pened.”

More progress need­ed

For­mer Trade Min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath said T&T has made sig­nif­i­cant so­cial and po­lit­i­cal progress since In­de­pen­dence, but has failed to achieve gen­uine eco­nom­ic and in­sti­tu­tion­al in­de­pen­dence.

Bharath said the coun­try de­vel­oped a so­phis­ti­cat­ed pub­lic ser­vice, le­gal sys­tem, uni­ver­sal ac­cess to ed­u­ca­tion, im­proved health­care and a sig­nif­i­cant in­dus­tri­al base. How­ev­er, suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments failed to di­ver­si­fy the econ­o­my away from oil and gas.

“We have di­ver­si­fied around en­er­gy rather than away from en­er­gy,” he said, not­ing that oil pro­duc­tion has fall­en from 150,000 bar­rels per day in 1978 to be­low 50,000 to­day, while gas out­put has de­clined from 4.3 bcf/d in 2010 to 2.6 bcf/d.

He said T&T re­peat­ed­ly used en­er­gy rev­enues to sus­tain con­sump­tion, gov­ern­ment em­ploy­ment, trans­fers and in­fra­struc­ture rather than cre­at­ing in­ter­na­tion­al­ly com­pet­i­tive in­dus­tries.

“We be­came po­lit­i­cal­ly in­de­pen­dent in 1962, but eco­nom­i­cal­ly we re­mained heav­i­ly de­pen­dent up­on sell­ing a fi­nite nat­ur­al re­source to the out­side world,” Bharath said.

He de­scribed this as the cen­tral para­dox of T&T’s post-In­de­pen­dence ex­pe­ri­ence.

FACT BOX

T&T in 1962 at In­de­pen­dence

Pop­u­la­tion

1960 Cen­sus-834,350

Main eco­nom­ic dri­vers

Pe­tro­le­um/oil, along­side agri­cul­ture

Agri­cul­tur­al em­ploy­ment

Rough­ly 25% of the labour force

Pover­ty

No re­li­able na­tion­al 1962 pover­ty rate

School en­rol­ment

Sec­ondary 20 per cent of sec­ondary school-aged chil­dren

School en­rol­ment

Pri­ma­ry over 80% of pri­ma­ry school-aged chil­dren