Fundamental changes needed in how THA is run, says James

GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­[email protected]

As To­ba­go heads in­to an­oth­er elec­tion cy­cle, econ­o­mist Dr Vanus James has is­sued a stark warn­ing: with­out fun­da­men­tal changes to how the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) and cen­tral gov­ern­ment ap­proach de­vel­op­ment, the is­land risks re­main­ing un­der­de­vel­oped in­def­i­nite­ly.

Speak­ing on the state’s role in en­tre­pre­neur­ship and eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, James ar­gued that the Gov­ern­ment is ill-equipped to dri­ve “Gold­en, high prof­it-mak­ing en­tre­pre­neur­ship”—the kind of ven­tures that could trans­form To­ba­go’s econ­o­my.

“You can’t do de­vel­op­ment un­der those con­di­tions. If you don’t want to face it as a coun­try, you’re just mak­ing the de­ci­sion to stay un­der­de­vel­oped for­ev­er,” he said.

James point­ed to da­ta show­ing that on­ly 16.4 per cent of this coun­try’s work­force holds uni­ver­si­ty de­grees, with To­ba­go lag­ging fur­ther be­hind at 13 per cent and falling.

For mean­ing­ful de­vel­op­ment, he ex­plained, that fig­ure must rise to at least 38 per cent, a thresh­old iden­ti­fied by the Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice (CSO) as the “turn­around point” for eco­nom­ic trans­for­ma­tion.

Re­flect­ing on To­ba­go’s po­lit­i­cal his­to­ry, James not­ed that the THA has spent 45 years at­tempt­ing to de­vel­op the is­land’s econ­o­my, with lit­tle suc­cess.

The prob­lem, he ar­gued, lies in the struc­tur­al de­pen­dence on cen­tral gov­ern­ment poli­cies.

“Cen­tral gov­ern­ment says ed­u­cate for the lo­cal pop­u­la­tion. That’s pol­i­cy. Even if the THA knew bet­ter, it could not change that to fo­cus on pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion for ex­port,” he said, as he ex­plained that key levers such as visas, for­eign in­vest­ment rights and trade arrange­ments re­main firm­ly un­der cen­tral gov­ern­ment con­trol.

“The cen­tral gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy is a sword of Damo­cles around the necks of the ad­min­is­tra­tive re­gions, in Trinidad as well as To­ba­go,” James stat­ed.

He al­so crit­i­cised the lack of mech­a­nisms for To­ba­go’s dis­tricts to in­flu­ence na­tion­al pol­i­cy.

“Right now, they may have a view, but they have no mech­a­nism to com­mu­ni­cate it. The Con­sti­tu­tion is not or­gan­ised for that. It’s Cab­i­net and the Op­po­si­tion—and talk­ing to the Op­po­si­tion is a waste of time. There is no way to talk to Cab­i­net,” he said.

This dis­con­nect, he ar­gued, ex­plains why di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion has stalled across both is­lands.

“The mech­a­nisms of di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion and de­vel­op­ment are all es­sen­tial­ly con­trolled by the cen­tral gov­ern­ment. Even if the THA has room to act, it’s lim­it­ed room, and the habits of politi­cians and ad­min­is­tra­tors are to de­pend on cen­tral gov­ern­ment,” he stat­ed.

“To­ba­go’s econ­o­my can­not move for­ward with­out joint pol­i­cy­mak­ing be­tween the THA and cen­tral gov­ern­ment, en­shrined in leg­is­la­tion. Not where Far­ley could go sit down and talk to Kam­la—not that kind of thing. You’re talk­ing about pol­i­cy dri­ven by law, by a prop­er­ly de­signed par­lia­ment. You don’t have that,” he fur­ther ex­plained.

Un­til such re­forms are made, he warned, To­ba­go will re­main trapped in a cy­cle of de­pen­dence and un­der­de­vel­op­ment.