THA's call to workers

The Tobago House of Assembly's Assistant Secretary in the Community Development Division wondered, while moving a motion on February 27, how workers had come to accept poor working habits as a norm.

"Tobago was not always like this," Wane Clarke said. One potential demotivator, he conjectured, was the central government's failure to increase salaries. But blaming the central government is an easy bobolee to beat.

"It's not us, it's them," is a particularly weak response by elected leaders to poor productivity among the assembly's workers.

Mr Clarke chose to argue his concern with an extended automotive metaphor, urging workers to "mash the gas."

But he may find, ultimately, that better management and performance monitoring of these conceptual engines might create more direct and useful acceleration of his unstated objectives. THA leadership might begin demonstrating restraint and focus in executing their work at the highest levels, avoiding, for instance, the temptation use objectionable language with workers in place of clear, sensible directives.

If worker productivity is the kind of crippling problem that Mr Clarke believes it is, then the question of why needs to be addressed in a more focused way.

In August 2023, Chief Secretary Farley Augustine acknowledged the slip in productivity at an executive council meeting, so it's not a recent development. It's not even a problem that's unique to Tobago.

TT Chamber CEO Vashti Guyadeen noted in October 2024, that productivity growth in TT lags significantly behind Latin American standards and called for more data-driven decision-making.

For Tobago, potential success will lie in the island's ability to maintain its infrastructure and glamour as a tourist destination.

But economist Dr Vanus James believes Tobago is the worst development problem he has seen in his career. Speaking at a Business Chamber discussion in January 2023, Dr James pointed out that Jamaica was attracting a million or more guests each year saying, "[Jamaica] makes US$5,600 per person with the most crime and poverty in the English Caribbean."

"I love Tobago and Tobagonians," Dr James said, "but I am realistic enough to tell you that [Tobago development] is a very serious problem."

Dr James believes that for Tobago to realise its potential in 30 years, the economy needs to grow at a rate of eight per cent each year.

Overall GDP growth for TT in 2024 was expected to be 1.9 per cent, but Tobago's economy is much flatter than that.

If Mr Clarke and Mr Augustine want to improve productivity in Tobago, the THA will have to create an economic master plan to improve its financial position, map its actions to support it and identify a role for each of its workers in making it a reality.

Anything else is, as Dr James warned, just "massive talk."