THE STORM THAT’S HITTING T&T

WHO says the storm did not strike Trinidad and Tobago?

The crisis of confidence with respect to Attorney General Reginald Armour is a cyclone that hits at the root of our national institutions.

Armour’s rebuff of the worthy criticisms is a whirlwind on the state of national governance and, especially on his crucial portfolio, as titular head of the bar.

It amounts to heavy precipitation by the authorities on eminent international judges and qualified local opinion.

Armour would survive the tempest because of his boss’ defiance and rigid manner.

Equally, the Government’s continued refusal to implement procurement regulations is a disturbance that is affecting the faith by domestic and international investors.

The authorities are unmoved in spite of an unusual tempest from large business organisations, which temporarily shelved their penchant for reticence.

Trinidad and Tobago is in the midst of a twister as one of the least investor-friendly countries in the world, now ranked by the World Bank in the 105th position.

Haiti, the acknowledged, poorest nation in the hemisphere, is reported by the World Bank as receiving more direct foreign investments.

Transparent procurement policies have been identified as a key driver in wooing business corporations.  

A gale-force wind led Unilever to pack up and leave T&T after more than a half-century, throwing hundreds of workers on the breadline.

Several others – including major foreign-exchange ArcelorMittal – had earlier fled the windstorm, although for a variety of reasons.

For the first time in two decades, prospective investors are not beating down T&T’s door.

The national apathy and police chief McDonald Jacob’s attempt to downplay the crime spree is a tornado of its own.

Jacob’s assertion that “crime is not out of control” is a dreadful downpour on the national state of siege, in which armed-to-the-teeth gangsters stalk the land.

The police boss has also seemingly neglected the blizzard that nine in 10 homicides remain unsolved and that most victims of assaults, robberies, and other heinous crimes must weather their own rainstorms.

Nationals continue to amble through the crime crisis, despite its typhoon impact on families and small businesses.

With respect to those “mom and pop shops”, the world observed the United Nations’ Micro, Small, and Medium-Sized Enterprises Day last week, without a murmur from the local authorities.

That ties in with the Government’s rainstorm damper on that vital sector.

About 6,000 MSMs did not re-open after the Covid-19 lockdown, partly because of the Government’s lack of initiative in bailing them out.

Other countries instructed commercial banks to renegotiate loans and to offer payroll, rent, utility, and other relevant support.

In T&T, banks and large corporations reported larger profits, while small operations endured powerful gusts that led to their doors being slammed in their faces.

It did not appear to bother the authorities that MSMs account for 85 percent of local business, employ more than 300,000 workers and contribute 40 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The Government’s callousness is also expressed in its hurricane response to the ever-worsening food crisis.

The sole salvo to the windstorm has come from Trade and Industry Minister Paula Gopee-Scoon, who turned grocers into scapegoats.

The minister ignored the fact that she presides over a Consumer Affairs Division, which could nab price-gougers.

Even more substantively, the Government has offered no response to the looming blizzard of food price increases.

T&T still imports most of what the country eats – at a gale-force annual cost of $6 billion – while international agencies are warning of hunger, starvation, and even famine.

International food supplies are heavily impacted by the various production tornadoes.

They include the Russian-Ukranian war, with both countries being major producers of wheat, barley, cooking oil, and other essentials.

On-going supply chain issues caused by the Covid-19 shutdown, climate change, hoarding by India, Argentina and other countries, are among the other reasons.

Fertiliser costs have blasted by 44 percent in the first few months of the year.

Increased production costs are raining cats and dogs, from poultry to meat to milk to cereal – and much more.

But Trinidad and Tobago is yet to hear of any flurry of food production.

Instead, crony media scribes are being enlisted to say that flour prices in T&T are cheaper than in the rest of the region.

That propaganda outburst ignores the overall high cost of living and steep unemployment.

Indeed, almost one-in-four workers is either jobless or struggling in low-paying, dead-end posts in order to buy food, pay rent and send their children to school.

It is nothing short of a category five hurricane that there are still no measures to stir the flagging economy away from the volatile energy sector.

Yet another torrential drencher is the pathetic state of the public health sector, with patients still waiting up to two days for a bed.

Indeed, one such patient died last week, and his corpse was robbed of his valuables.

In a land of lethargy, this and similar medical monsoons are not even reported n the media or investigated by the authorities.

And there are several other national flurries that directly impact the quality of life, leading some to seek greener pastures while others simply hope the weather system soon dissipates.

For example, pharmaceutical costs are rising like a windstorm, roads are deteriorating like the after-effects of a flood, and – have you noticed? – the quality of private sector service has fallen to that in the public sector.

Who says a storm has not hit T&T?