NEW DATA SHOWS DRAMATIC ECONOMIC DECLINE

PRIME Minister Dr. Keith Rowley, who recently termed damning financial data as “jackassness,” may want to examine other disturbing economic statistics.

New studies are revealing dramatic declines in virtually all areas of economic activity and a major increase in external debt.

Economists say the statistics place Trinidad and Tobago in its worst economic state in four decades.

Rowley dismissed economist Mala Dukharan’s critical examination of the unaccounted flight of foreign exchange as “jackassness.”

Ms. Dukharan said US $25 billion in foreign exchange has “gone missing” over the past 12 years.

She stated: “Over US $2 billion each year just disappears, and nobody has been able to account for it.”

The economist said she based her investigation on an International Monetary Fund (IMF) database.

Finance Minister Colm Imbert, who is sensitive to criticisms of the management of the economy, has not responded to Ms. Dukharan’s explosive claim.

A study attributed to economist Dr. Roger Hosein shows that in recent years the external debt has soared while the economy has declined.

This has become even more pronounced since 2014.

Separate research reveals a weakening of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the labour force participation rate, and the number of employed workers.

Employment slumped in most sectors, including services, petroleum and manufacturing.

Agriculture was the only sector that showed growth, with 22,600 people now employed, compared to 21,300 in 2015.

In petroleum, there are now 10,300 employees, in contrast to 20,500 in 2015.

The net official reserves have fallen by a third, the external debt has more than doubled, and interest payments are about 60 per cent higher.

The non-energy fiscal deficit is about 250 per cent higher.

Inflation has seen a weakening of the value of the national currency.

The cost of food imports has gone up.

Real non-tradable output as a percentage of the total output is also worse than in 2015.

And non-tradable employment as a percentage of the number of people with jobs is also inferior to a decade ago.

In contrast, the homicide rate has risen in most years since 2015.

Analysts have been calling on the Rowley administration to diversify the economy and manage the mounting debt.

There have been financial deficits in 14 of the past 15 national budgets, amid continuous declines in oil and natural gas production and unstable international prices.

Imbert has dismissed criticism of the debt as “scaremongering,” but he has acknowledged that the next few years will be “challenging” unless he could rake in additional taxes.

He is banking heavily on the Revenue Authority, whose launch is bogged down in protracted litigation.

Imbert said the Government will face difficulties in funding subsidies, grants and social welfare programmes.

That means that citizens would face more economic problems, especially over the next couple of years.

It is also expected that there would be challenges in funding repairs of roads and other dilapidated areas of the national infrastructure.

The Government’s economic eggs are in the basket of monetising T&T’s assets in the cross-border natural gas fields with Venezuela.

Government officials are expected to hold out that hope in the forthcoming annual budget and the general election campaign.

But those projects are uncertain in light of the Venezuelan political conflict.

Critics may say the declining economy and dependence on a sole venture is where the real “jackassness” exists.