PM: Special project management company to take TT to the world

THE PRIME MINISTER has proposed a project management company, initially facilitated by the State, to get TT’s experience and expertise out into the wider world.

“We in Trinidad and Tobago have considerable experience and raw material in providing project management to ourselves and to the region. We also have a significant pool of young people who can become human capital in a way to not only supply our needs, but to supply the needs of the external – outside of our borders – to create economic activity,” Dr Rowley said at Monday’s Spotlight on the Economy forum, held at the Hyatt Regency Port of Spain.

Such an idea needed government intervention, he said, otherwise it would be consigned to just talk.

“That is one of the areas that the government should and would (want to) be a catalyst, because the history of our country is that invariably there's talk as to what can and should be done in TT, but it usually takes the government to be the engine to pull those carriages.

“I'm confident that if the government does not get involved and risk some taxpayer resource that that will remain a conversation. We do not want this to remain a conversation.”

The aim, he said, would be a public-private partnership to create an entity that would offer external services, “not just to Trinidad and Tobago or Guyana, but as far as Ghana, where we are being encouraged to invest.”

Such a project would require an entity that the government will offer the private sector some element of participation to bring out TT’s human capital through providing quality and quantity of external project management and other investment-type services that can contribute to economic growth, outside of the sector.

“We mentioned the whole question of an identity…it will have to happen against the backdrop of an understanding that success requires change. Where there's no change there will be no success in the kinds of things that we (going) after.”