Our new government is now two weeks old and has begun getting its fingers dirty and feet wet, while we anxiously await the fulfilment of promises and the chance to gauge if the electorate made the right choice. We are still in the phase of revealing failings of the previous administration and affirmations about what will be achieved but there is a sense that the public has little appetite for disappointment.
To what extent the inherited 'financial hole of TT$4.42 billion' can be plugged, if at all, is one of the big question marks, as is the inevitability and wisdom of running a deficit of $11 billion this year, as the PM estimates. The cuts outlined so far will not dent that expenditure figure, especially if the property taxes are unnecessarily repaid. Reducing state-funded housing for ministers and other officials would be most welcome, not least because the practice is yet another colonial habit adopted without proper reckoning, but, like Elon Musk's unpopular and damaging DOGE project, those savings really do not pay the bills. So, those measures feel like tinkering.
What is needed is a root-and-branch redesign of the economy. The energy sector will inevitably remain the basis of our economy, notwithstanding the paradox that as a fossil fuel producer, we contribute to the destruction of the environment while, as a small island state, we are simultaneously severely exposed to the effects of that destruction. How we balance that is critical.
Encouragingly, good appointments have been made to give new thrust to trade and manufacturing but the project to increase our non-energy assets must prioritise improving tax collection - taxpayers have a bigger stake in society - and more private-public sector collaborations. Growing our human capital is fundamental and must include our valuable cultural assets. The tertiary education thrust should include educating the populace about the environment and its conservation, and about civil society.
Poor planning and structuring of the economy have caused many distortions in society. Our education system has produced world-class experts and professionals but the narrow economy cannot absorb them. How is it that our nursing students are the worst performing at the CXC regional exams? It cannot be that the average national IQ has plummeted. Compared to many countries, and certainly for our size, our healthcare system is enviable, even with all its flaws, but that too mocks our inability to deliver. We have had the means but we have insisted on methods that fail us. Let's hope this new government will change that trajectory.
None of that is contentious. TT citizens largely agree on the priorities of the country, but certain policies divide us. Personally, one aspect of the crime policy is most worrying: The PM's gun ownership policy.
TT may feel like a frontier society but it is not. We do not need to 'stand our ground' and shoot Apaches who come to torch our caravans and scalp us while out on the prairie. That is somebody else's history, not ours. The US has the high
