HOPELESS – NOT CASHLESS – SOCIETY

PRIME MINISTER Dr. Keith Rowley’s promise of a cashless society would not materialise any time soon in Trinidad and Tobago. 

And it is not just that with limited cash and rampant poverty, many people have little or no funds and are struggling to make a living. 

Cashless societies are built around modern information technology systems, and T&T is behind most countries in digitalisation. 

Most of the public service is still to be digitalised despite the historic appointment of a line minister (his name is Hassel Bacchus) and repeated official pledges to speed up the process. 

In addition, commercial banks and merchants need to invest in state-of-the-art digital infrastructure and properly educate their employees and customers. 

Much more hardware and software equipment must be available in both the public and private sectors. 

Commercial activities must be efficient, speedy and reliable. 

A Government with a poor record of implementation cannot achieve such a comprehensive process in short order. 

The PNM Administration is still to deliver on several basic 2015 general election manifesto promises. 

They include setting up a statistical institute and enacting whistleblower legislation. 

Construction of several schools remain unfinished from 2015. 

To be fair, cashless societies exist in only a handful of countries, all of them modern, progressive and developed. 

Other nations are heading that way. 

Visionary, assertive leaders drive them.  

The painfully slow pace of overall progress in Trinidad and Tobago places the country at the back of the class. 

In 2015, Rowley said that laptop computers in school “had no statistically significant impact on student performance.” 

He uttered that brazen remark after the distribution of almost 100,000 computers by the Kamla Persad-Bissessar coincided with historic high performances at the secondary level. 

Advanced countries around the world were utilising equipped computers as an essential tool of learning. 

Technology brings the world to classrooms and homes. 

Then-United States President Barack Obama got computer manufacturers to donate millions of items to poor students. 

Apart from the backwardness of the T&T authorities in the age of technology, a cashless society is hardly a priority for thousands of people mired in destitution. 

Independent studies show that about a third of the working class exists under the so-called poverty line, meaning that they cannot afford a nominal basket of essential food each day. 

Stark poverty grips an estimated five per cent of households. 

Some have stopped looking for jobs, leading to an unrealistic official unemployment figure. 

The middle class is evaporating (some are migrating) because of pressure on small business, the crime epidemic, and a general sense of hopelessness. 

The touting of a cashless society fits snugly into other whimsical statements by Rowley, including his declaration that crime is a public health issue. 

Both law-abiding citizens and criminals have not come to terms with that irrational statement.  

Nationals are being brutalised more than ever, and gangsters appear to be even more armed and dangerous. 

Rowley has also dismissed several other national concerns, such as the woeful state of infrastructure, annual floods, critical water shortages, and other social and economic problems. 

Responding to complaints that he has made no effort to diversify the economy, he said the previously planned Sandals resort in Tobago was one such measure. 

Now, a cashless society appears to be his latest trendy term, an apparent effort to sound conversant with modern developments, even as hopelessness stalks the land.