A DUNCE CAP FOR IMBERT

COLM Imbert wrote the PNM’s 2015 general election manifesto, which faithfully promised to grow and diversify the economy.

Imbert and the PNM guaranteed that there would be “macroeconomic stability, strong institutions and investor confidence.”

Further, there were assurances of “sustainable growth and diversification,” along with “job creation and promotion of social justice.”

Imbert pledged to wean Trinidad and Tobago from the “matured energy sector” and develop alternative industries to improve the quality of national life.

Almost a decade later, and with Imbert as the bungling Finance Minister, the economy has slumped to its worst state in four decades and the standard of life is plunging to pre-Independence levels.

Instead of creating growth and opportunities, Imbert, and his boss, Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley, are hoping, praying and longing for monetisation of a cross-border natural gas project in three years’ time.

The Government having long discarded its lofty manifesto plans, all its eggs are in a single wobbly basket while unemployment, poverty and a mental health crisis stalk the land. 

The current foreign exchange crisis is one disastrous result of a one-horse-pony country, in which investors are fleeing the barren economy.

In 2022 and 2023 alone, there was a net flight of US $2.6 billion in foreign direct investments, the worst state of any Caricom country.

A lack of investors equates to less foreign exchange earnings, with downstream consequences.

T&T remains lagging in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business metrics, with Imbert – and blundering Trade and Industry sidekick Paula Gopee-Scoon – taking no steps to remedy the fiasco.

Most distressingly, Imbert has not initiated any meaningful measures to diversify an ailing economy, despite grandiose pledges in each of his nine budgets.

There have been vain promises to boost manufacturing, agriculture, ship-building, finance, and numerous other sectors.

Instead, the cupboard is now bare, with the Finance Minister resorting to sleight of hand in each boastful budget, the most recent taking more than five hours to deliver.

Imbert habitually dips into the sovereign Heritage and Stabilisation Fund and takes his begging bowl internationally.

T&T’s debt-to-GDP ratio – one indication of an economy’s health – is in the red zone, with the next generation burdened with Imbert-negotiated loans.

There has been none of the promised economic stability, investor confidence and job creation.

Institutions have collapsed, partly because of the appointment of political cronies and yes-men.

The nation is on the run from the miserable circumstances, with more and more seeking greener pastures.

Rowley is to blame, of course, for appointing a woefully incompetent Minister of Finance, one who twins ineptitude with haughtiness.

When the Rowley Administration was elected, there were already worrying international economic indicators, which warranted a Finance Minister of substance, experienced and adjusted temperament. 

Instead, Rowley pulled the ill-suited Imbert, an engineer, from his heap of ham-fisted minions.

The Finance Minister has steered a shaky economy down the precipice while creating straw men and being hostile toward criticism.

He fiddled while Rome burned.

The foreign exchange crisis is one symptom of an ailing and aimless economy, alongside an absence of investments, with workers on starvation decade-old wages and an ever-declining quality of life.

Imbert is the wrecking ball in a decade that turned T&T from Caricom’s princes to pariahs, from prosperous to poor.

For presiding over the collapse of the region’s most admired economy, Imbert deserves to be outfitted with a dunce cap.