Elec­tions are in the air and as some would term it “sil­ly sea­son.” There are many ex­or­bi­tant and un­re­al­is­tic promis­es be­ing made by po­lit­i­cal par­ties. We all know the rhetoric and at a time when the econ­o­my is be­ing sta­bilised, the more par­ties make un­re­al­is­tic and vague promis­es, the more cit­i­zens be­come skep­ti­cal of their true in­ten­tions.

It is amus­ing and some­times vex­ing to hear po­lit­i­cal par­ties who re­cent­ly had their term in of­fice crit­i­cise a gov­ern­ment for things they them­selves failed to do dur­ing their tenure. The call to di­ver­si­fy the econ­o­my with­out any strate­gic or op­er­a­tional plan is al­ways one of the an­thems po­lit­i­cal par­ties sing when at­tempt­ing to get in­to gov­ern­ment. No po­lit­i­cal par­ty has said what they would have done with Petrotrin if they were in gov­ern­ment. Op­po­si­tion par­ties sim­ply say it could have been han­dled bet­ter which may have some mer­it if “han­dled bet­ter” could be more spe­cif­ic. In ad­di­tion to set­tle­ment pack­ages and land for for­mer em­ploy­ees, the op­po­si­tion needs to say what they would have done dif­fer­ent­ly.

Will these par­ties bring back Petrotrin if elect­ed or if they were in gov­ern­ment would they have con­tin­ued to play po­lit­i­cal foot­ball and al­low loss­es of $2 bil­lion an­nu­al­ly as sug­gest­ed by the Fi­nance Min­istry. New life has been giv­en to the en­er­gy sec­tor with the birth of Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um as a lean­er or­gan­i­sa­tion poised to re­turn the pe­tro­le­um in­dus­try to prof­itabil­i­ty.

Dr Row­ley has held the man­tle and kept the coun­try out of the hands of the IMF. Cit­i­zens re­alise that an IMF pro­gramme would have meant many de­mands. One such de­mand which is nor­mal un­der an IMF pro­gramme could have been cut­ting pub­lic ser­vice jobs by as much as 20 per cent which could have trans­lat­ed in­to the loss of around 10,000 jobs. Would the Op­po­si­tion have gone to the IMF in­stead of mak­ing moves to gen­er­ate the much need­ed ad­di­tion­al rev­enue in­ter­nal­ly?

The Op­po­si­tion is promis­ing to cre­ate 50,000 jobs but how, when and where? These are the ques­tions which are nev­er an­swered on the cam­paign trail dur­ing this sil­ly sea­son. The for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion has been brand­ed by some as the most cor­rupt gov­ern­ment in our na­tion’s his­to­ry but they have not promised to stamp out cor­rup­tion much less ven­tured to say how, if at all. The pop­u­la­tion wants to know that a gov­ern­ment will make the right de­ci­sions and the dif­fi­cult de­ci­sions, not with a fo­cus of stay­ing in pow­er but in the best in­ter­est of all the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go. So while many are mak­ing promis­es be sure to con­sid­er who can de­liv­er sta­bil­i­ty, progress and good gov­er­nance.

Ed­i­tor’s note: Ronald Hug­gins is a for­mer PNM Sen­a­tor.

Ronald Hug­gins

St Joseph, via email