ROWLEY’S FLIGHTS OF FANTASY

STEELBAND, the world-acclaimed national instrument, remains without a home almost a century after its invention.

The administrators are sustained by taxpayers by more than $50 million each year.

Now, an unfinished Pan Trinbago building – long reduced to a highway eyesore – is to be converted into a cricket stadium, although there is a similar facility that comes to life mainly for soca shows.

The new cricket arena, according to Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley, will be built by Reliance Industries, an energy, entertainment, telecommunications and textiles giant from India.

The conglomerate is owned by mogul Mukesh Ambani, who is worth – take a gasp – US $116 billion.

Rowley himself is heading to India to discuss construction of a stadium with one of the most powerful entrepreneurs in the world.

This is one of scores of current Reliance projects, with others including a mega joint enterprise with Walt Disney, a giant energy complex in Gujarat, India, and various deepwater drilling ventures.

Cricket is a national Indian passion and a sports stadium in tiny Trinidad and Tobago must be a fun project, since there is little capacity for commercial returns.

It could well be the result of a fascination with Brian Lara, T&T’s finest ambassador.

But the Prime Minister, no less, is going to talk about a stadium with a tycoon who in 2023 topped Forbes magazine’s list of billionaires.

What a difference a decade makes!

Just a few years ago, T&T was attracting foreign investments worth an annual average value of US $1.5 billion.

ECLAC, a United Nations agency, says this country is now bleeding investments at almost US $1 billion a year.

And the country’s leader – on another flight of fantasy – is going to discuss a mortar-and-concrete structure with a magnate who could direct information technology and other modern industries to T&T.

Indeed, with his abundant resources, Ambani could assist in rebuilding our energy eco-system and boosting our food production.

Such detachment from reality is what makes Rowley’s international joyrides so galling.

He is heading again to Ghana, a West African land with a modern, prosperous economy and a gateway to other market access.

But T&T is still to see results from Rowley’s earlier visit.

We have not even enjoyed Ghana’s fabled yam which Rowley promised, and which a friend tells me is smooth and tasty.

Trade Minister Paula Gopee-Scoon – under whose watch T&T has slumped to its lowest-ever ease-of-doing-business rating – recently led an investment mission to Accra.

No one expects much result from the Ghanaian sojourn, despite the possibilities in that land of 33.5 million.

And that’s the core matter with Rowley’s $10.6 million three-year travels and the frequent flier agenda of other ministers.

There are no focused designs and no purposeful business outcomes.

But in this electoral stilly season, Rowley has returned to his brand of identity politics.

He appeased many by renaming the obvious to African Emancipation Day, but has done nothing to advocate the reparations agenda.

Descendants of former operators of chattel slavery recently provided compensation in Grenada, Jamaica and elsewhere, and Guyana’s Dr. Irfaan Ali is talking tough on the issue.

See Ali’s recent take-no-prisoners interview with BBC’s Stephen Sackur.

But an indication of T&T’s state is that the operators of steelband, that timeless symbol of our creativity, are still shackled at a cramped office in the capital city.

As the calypsonians, sing, look wey pan reach.