ROWLEY’S 10 DISASTROUS YEAR

“LET’S rescue our country,” Dr. Keith Rowley told Trinidad and Tobago 10 years ago.

Rowley touted Vision 2020, a developed nation in which “decisions are made and actions taken by the Government in the best interests of all concerned.”

In the 2015 general election manifesto, Rowley’s PNM promised integrity, transparency and accountability in public affairs, safety and security (“violent crime is out of control”), a diversified economy, and improved healthcare, education and public utilities.

Citizens were assured of an equitable distribution of wealth, productive job creation, more food production, and action on floods.

There will be a seat at the table of decision-making for labour, overdue governance legislation will be passed, and a robust and effective foreign policy would be implemented.

The water sector, environment, trade and industry, the infrastructure, and housing will be national priorities.

Rowley vowed sweeping reforms, assuring that he would “rescue” the nation.

He leaves the office of Prime Minister within the next few days without accomplishing any of the ballyhooed electoral promises he made in 2015 and repeated in 2020.

His report card is barren on virtually every manifesto pledge.

T&T has become a virtual war zone, with thousands killed under Rowley’s watch, and many others assaulted, robbed, abducted, extorted, and terrorised.

While blood flowed, he engaged in semantics, at one time describing crime as a public health issue.

High-powered guns still enter freely, along with brutal Venezuelan gangsters and desperate migrants, through our ever-porous southern borders.

The ruining of the national economy is a singular disaster, with the largest-ever debt and still no alternative growth sector.

Rowley and his Cabinet sidekicks steadfastly declined to steer away from the waning energy sector and whip up other fields that were identified by Patrick Manning two decades ago.

Without natural gas feedstock, investors have fled, and Point Lisas Industrial Estate, once a Caribbean wonder, is a rust belt.

Business fat-cats were given prime farm lands to set up retail outlets, while the food import bill skyrocketed by 85 per cent and the cost of grocery items got out of the reach of the working class.

Thousands of small businesses collapsed on the weight of an inequitable distribution of foreign exchange and other crippling challenges.

The wealth gap has never been this wide, sparking a crisis of malnutrition and school drop-outs, and prompting many to seek greener pastures.

The once-time economic beacon of the Caribbean now sees tear-filled beggars at street-corners, hungry children at their side, and a virtual wipe-out of the essential middle-class.

Independent institutions have been systemically subverted and politicised.

Rowley, who had stood up to Manning on the billion-dollar excesses of Calder Hart at UDECOTT, belatedly introduced watered-down procurement legislation that is ignored by many along the corridors of power.   

An estimated $5 billion a year still escape official independent examination.

Rural neglect, fractured relations with Tobago, and an aimless foreign policy are also in Rowley’s grade sheet.

These glaring failures are compounded by the vulgarity of his fattened wallet (even in retirement!), haughtiness, poor work ethic (playing golf at 9 a.m. on a workday), extended vacations, and endemic blame-game.

As he steps aside, it is difficult to be charitable to Rowley after his policies, action and inaction set back the country’s growth and development and hurt a generation of innocent youths.

Along with that, his gruff temperament and polarising manner, in which he is furious over dissenting opinions, have made him a divisive figure in our public affairs.

His tenure has been 10 disastrous years.