TT: A ticking time bomb

WITH AN impending general election, one thing is clear: whoever wins will lose. The victor after the last ballot is counted will be handed tiny scissors, made to stand over a massive bomb and told to clip one of the wires – except, both wires are red.

As is usually the case, the main electoral combatants are the PNM and the UNC. The victor at the polls will have a truly unenviable task: preventing certain implosion.

We are in a very tight spot. Sure, for the most part Trinis try to convince themselves the nation is carrying on notwithstanding “talk” of economic necrosis.

Pricey Carnival fetes are sold out, Pennywise opens a megawatt mega-complex, and there are new cars everywhere. That means things are looking up, right?

Also, if people in government continue to display an almost childlike understanding of how an economy works, what can we expect of lay people with no interest in all that economic static?

The country has all the bearing of holding it together on the surface. That artifice, though, is falling away. Cracks became crevices and crevices are now yawning chasms. It’s useful to understand why.

The desperately struggling artificial economy of TT is largely a construct of irresponsible politics. Our governments engineered and sustained a business class suckled on oil and gas rents.

Private sector actors continue the colonial model of selling imported goods to the domestic market. To do so they consume vast quantities of foreign currency to prop up the false economy and concentrated wealth.

In a way, the oil and gas companies are paying royalties which we send directly back to their countries, purchasing products and services from them. It’s like we’re borrowing money from them so we can buy their stuff. Brilliant.

Now that the oil and gas industry is underpowered and foreign exchange scarce the illusion is revealed; at least for some.

Oh, there’s always someone ready to stand on a podium to sing the praises of our “robust,” export-oriented manufacturing sector. Yet we produce nothing. Most of the raw materials and manufacturing inputs are imported.

Still, being an economy of businesses ready to oblige every taste is a lot easier than innovation and ingenuity. Why buss your brains to develop indigenous resources and leverage intellectual capital?

As the greenbacks dried up, the suitcase trader economy built by our politics has become just another casualty of backward politics.

You know things are really brown when the criminally reticent business chambers break their monk-like silence to signal the consequences of sustained economic lethargy.

AmCham president Patricia Ghany said recently, “In the absence of a clear vision and, therefore, direction, we are reaping the havoc of virtually standing still...”

A caustic assessment indeed from a sector that generally hews towards the self-censorship of realpolitik in business dealings. It’s better to keep your ar-- kwart than deal with sudden headaches getting your goods cleared on the port.

So how has society girded its loins for these difficult times? By demonising economists like Marla Dukharan, Mariano Browne and Indera Sagewan-Ali for having the brass to dispassionately analyse the data; those unpatriotic curs.

People, we are in the clutches of prolonged, bitter economic adjustment. Political parties battling for dominance are essentially competing to hold a ticking time bomb.

Difficult decisions will have to be made. Regardless of who wins, it can’t be business as usual in the creation of a cabinet. When assembling the team to guide the country forward, it’s usually all about gathering loyalists near, and rewarding senior party stalwarts with a cobo sweat. An actual wooden cabinet has more inherent value.

Our dire situation demands nothing less than our best and brightest. A new (but likely old) 2020 government will need to lead with strategy, creativity, progressive thinking and hard work to transform the economy. We need governance that embraces technology to drive change.

Those qualities on their own will not be enough, though. This society needs to become the kind of informed employer that will call their hires on poor performance. We need to be like a virago in their tail, regardless of political camps, ready to criticise their mistakes without worrying about betraying our tribe.

This election year calls for a different kind of politics and an evolved breed of voter, one who won’t take crap from their party.

If not, the losing party may rejoice at having lost, and the party that wins may live to regret having prevailed.