Kamla growth was based on our children

THE EDITOR: The 2013 budget of the Kamla Persad-Bissessar-led People's Partnership government was entitled "Stimulating Growth, Generating Prosperity."

In stark contrast to the modus operandi of the PNM government where budgets are just given titles to gaslight the population, the budgets of Persad-Bissessar reflected the actual policy direction and government-driven implementation process.

The 2013 budget stands out as a watershed moment in our nation's history because significant announcements were made relating to education, specifically the increase in the laptop programme for secondary school students, expansion of the GATE programme, the creation of a drilling academy, the construction of a COSTATT main campus, and the launch of the El Dorado nursing academy.

It was the holistic investment into the inclusive development of all forms of national education.

As prime minister, Persad-Bissessar's budgets were not just a process of assigning recurrent expenditure, but it marked a process of "return on investment" for the population where a government was putting taxpayers' money to work for them. Even more important, this was a prime minister focusing growth on the key indicator that could propel future GDP: human capital development.

It is a well-known fact that the components of a nation's GDP are consumer spending, investment, government spending, and net exports.

Persad-Bissessar's fiscal packages or government spending on education development were potent to create a multiplier effect, which added more income within the economy, spurring on consumer spending to create employment in the short and long term while also ensuring future educated human capital in a broad spectrum.

That well-educated human capital, either in academia or technical and vocational skills, would generate future investment (the investment of GDP) and value creation through expanded local production (the net exports of GDP) which would earn forex, revenue and foreign direct investment for TT.

In essence, Persad-Bissessar's budgets were geared at truly developing our GDP and economic growth in an inclusive manner, which would improve the national standard of living.

Her budgets were potent because they based economic growth on education, human capital enrichment and skills training, which would have positively impacted all key components of our GDP.

NICHOLAS MORRIS

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