Developed Country Status

During the past ten years we have seen a lot of work toward “developed country status” as articulated by the government at the time. Port of Spain has been transformed, literally overnight, into a city filled with skyscrapers. We have what is labelled an International Water Front supposedly as a demonstration that we are a developed country, at least to the eyes. For that is just what it is. This is nothing more than someone experiencing an increase in income and spends it on bling. For the real development, development of the people has not even left the gates.

To be fair, there has been an education drive toward developing an innovative people. I have always been of the view that the only way to develop a people is to educate them which leads to them being productive citizens rather than depend on hand outs, the country benefits. But what has this achieved? Has anyone collect data on what the system has churned out compared to enrolment? Has anyone looked at the drop outs and the waste of public funds in this regard? It it enough for you to say that we have “free “nursery to tertiary” education without knowing the returns on that investment by tax payers?

Today we are experiencing what some may tern a stagnant economy, no activity they say. Why is this so? My suggestion would be that we decided to spend everything that we earned whilst the stream was unending, at least so many thought. I have no doubt that eventually we would in fact get to a state in our development that we would in fact be considered a developed country. My concerns however are in relation to the processes used to get there. Should this development be all at once or should it be a phased process? Had we phased out the development in terms of infrastructure we would have effectively not created a situation where inflation would have been a factor to contend with for example. And as revenue falls, we would have had some savings s activity could have been sustained thereby maintaining employment and encouraging investment.

But it was argued at the time that if we don’t do it now, we would not be able to do it later at the cost we were doing it at. But is that so? Almost ALL of the projects undertaken were over budget and overdue in terms of delivery. Further, there is the priority factor, today after billions in expenditure many of the problems we face ten years ago are still with us today. Maybe they would have disappeared in 2020.

Corruption is but the main reason the former regime was removed from office. The manner in which allegations were dealt with, the key factor. What this effectively did was to raise concerns about the real aim of the government. Whilst we saw all the tall buildings in POS the real aim may have been to siphon funds into private bank accounts. None of the projects had any positive direct impact on the ordinary citizen. Had the intention been to really improve the lives of the ordinary man, many may not be demanding from the present regime what past government failed to provide given the revenue stream and the wastage.

Social Programs, aimed at improving the lives of the small man. I would agree that there were several social programs that seek to address some of the needs of the poor man but were they effective or were they just there to maintain the vote bank. I pity those who access these programs knowing that their lives would be no different five, ten years down the road. What these programs have done is to keep persons in a state of dependency, where they are beholden to a government. Is this people development? Should we demand more? Or should we just continue to vote for hand outs whilst an elite few benefit from the largesse created by our tax dollar.

Development must mean more and we must demand more.