Opposition opposes without reason

The Opposition needs to step up to the plate when it comes to legislation such as global forum, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) and constitutional reform. Chairman of the Economic Development Advisory Board Dr Terrence Farrell said the Opposition in this country tended to oppose without any basis or any reason.

Farrell was speaking with reporters at the annual International Finance and Accounting Conference at the Hyatt Regency, Wrightson Road, Port-of-Spain last Friday.

Themed “Driving the Upturn — The Transformation to Longer Term Prosperity”, the conference dealt with change in the country on the way forward. He said the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Trinidad and Tobago (ICATT) and the business community must be advocates for change if it wanted adjustment in the country.

Farrell said people always asked the question what could they do while most of them threw up their hands in surrender expecting that the Government was going to know what to do, or that the Government was going to take the right action.

“But the point is civil society organisations, business organisations, professional organisations like ICATT, the Chambers of Commerce, churches in the country and so on all have a stake in the country. “The Government is elected to run the country, but the country does not belong to the Government, the country belongs to all of the citizens and the citizens are composed of all of us, not just the political parties.

Therefore when we have issues that are impacting the country, then it is incumbent on all professional organisations, business organisations, churches and civil societies to let their voices be heard, to speak up and to put forward, in my view, specific things, not simply protest and complain.

“They need to put forward specific recommendations to the Government and the Opposition because one of the problems that we have in this country is that the Opposition in this country tends to be opposed without any basis of any reason. That can change if the Opposition understands that there are organisations that are not happy with their performance and are prepared to vote people out, vote people in based on what they deliver to the rest of society,” he said.