Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

The Prime Min­is­ter is re­ceiv­ing praise for amal­ga­mat­ing the func­tions and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of the Min­istries of Plan­ning and Fi­nance by plac­ing each sub­stan­tive min­is­ter to as­sist the oth­er by way of ad­di­tion­al port­fo­lios.

On May 13, Plan­ning Min­is­ter Kennedy Swarats­ingh was giv­en the ad­di­tion­al port­fo­lio as Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance to work along­side Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo.

Two days lat­er, on May 15, the Fi­nance Min­is­ter was giv­en the ex­tra re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of be­ing a min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Plan­ning, Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs and De­vel­op­ment.

This was re­cent­ly an­nounced in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Gazette.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands this will not re­sult in each min­is­ter re­ceiv­ing an ad­di­tion­al salary.

Com­ment­ing on Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s de­ci­sion to place him in the Min­istry of Fi­nance, Swarats­ingh said yes­ter­day it was a “clever” move.

“The Prime Min­is­ter felt that both my­self, Min­is­ter (Dav­en­dranath) Tan­coo and the Min­is­ter of Trade (Satyaka­ma Ma­haraj) have to work close­ly to­geth­er as we seek to re­shape the di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion port­fo­lio and gen­er­al work in the econ­o­my,” Swarats­ingh ex­plained.

He added, “So Min­is­ter Tan­coo, I think the Prime Min­is­ter would want him to play a role in my min­istry and that Min­is­ter Tan­coo, the Min­is­ter of Trade and my­self will form a sort of a team to ad­dress the eco­nom­ic di­rec­tion un­der the di­rec­tion of the Prime Min­is­ter.”

The min­is­ter said the Prime Min­is­ter has put them in “clus­ters” and this will al­low the min­istries to fo­cus on a group of ac­tiv­i­ties that will gen­er­ate busi­ness, trade and fa­cil­i­tate eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty.

Swarats­ingh served as Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion un­der the Patrick Man­ning-led PNM in 2007.

Good way for Govt to op­er­ate

Mean­while, po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist, Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath saw the move as work­ing in the best in­ter­est of the coun­try.

Ra­goonath said this will al­so ben­e­fit the Min­istry of Plan­ning, a port­fo­lio which he claimed has been ne­glect­ed in the past.

“That is the way the Gov­ern­ment should op­er­ate be­cause Plan­ning is a crit­i­cal min­istry that for what­ev­er rea­son in the past gov­ern­ments of­ten see it as an il­le­git­i­mate child, and they nev­er put that em­pha­sis on plan­ning. Plan­ning should be a crit­i­cal min­istry that should dri­ve all oth­er min­istries. When you look at some of these min­istries, the im­por­tance of some of them have been down­played by pri­or gov­ern­ments and I think it’s im­por­tant we put back em­pha­sis on some of these min­istries,” Ra­goonath ex­plained.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed said the “mul­ti sec­toral” ap­proach was need­ed at this time.

“So, you have these clus­ters where min­is­ters are work­ing in tan­dem with each oth­er. Their poli­cies are go­ing to in­form each oth­er so there’s a more holis­tic ap­proach to gov­er­nance. And when the PM asks a ques­tion to a min­is­ter and he can­not an­swer, there are oth­er min­is­ters that you will turn to ask if he is right or wrong. So, it’s greater ac­count­abil­i­ty from a Prime Min­is­te­r­i­al lev­el as well.”

Mo­hammed added that this will al­so ben­e­fit some­one like Tan­coo who has had no pri­or Cab­i­net ex­pe­ri­ence. He re­ferred to the re­cent about turn on prop­er­ty tax re­funds.

“I think it is im­por­tant that she did it very ear­ly and she’s able to utilise the re­sources in front of her to make sure those who are new and learn­ing, learn quick­ly and are whipped in­to shape as quick as pos­si­ble so you do not have an­oth­er sce­nario like Tan­coo.”

Econ­o­mist Dr Vaalmi­ki Ar­joon be­lieves the move by the Prime Min­is­ter will al­low the min­istries of Fi­nance, Plan­ning and Trade to stream­line de­ci­sion-mak­ing while rapid­ly iden­ti­fy­ing new rev­enue streams and di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion op­por­tu­ni­ties.

“With this frame­work, the Plan­ning Min­istry’s de­vel­op­ment strate­gies can be cost­ed, se­quenced, and swift­ly in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to the an­nu­al bud­get. This can sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duce the time tak­en from plan­ning to ap­pro­pri­a­tion that of­ten de­lays projects. Align­ing trade pol­i­cy with fis­cal mea­sures al­so en­ables in­dus­tri­al in­cen­tives and ex­port-mar­ket ini­tia­tives such as tax cred­its etc, to re­in­force each oth­er in­stead of pulling in dif­fer­ent di­rec­tions. The re­sult boosts in­vestor con­fi­dence, op­ti­mis­es re­source al­lo­ca­tion, and guar­an­tees a uni­fied eco­nom­ic vi­sion geared to­wards di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion and faster rev­enue gen­er­a­tion,” he ex­plained.