In August 2015, in front of a crowd of thousands of red-clad People’s National Movement supporters, Dr Keith Rowley announced a number of initiatives to be introduced by his government if the party won.
These initiatives included a new curriculum for the primary school system, a code of ethics for parliamentarians, Cabinet reform, a new Integrity Commission (IC), 1,400 police officers to be deployed at the 14 municipal corporations, industrial expansion, open discussions with the trade union movement, establishment of a road network from Valencia to Toco, local government reform, and internal self-governance for Tobago.
Whether these promises will be fulfilled within a five-year term remains to be seen, but Rowley, who led his party to victory and was appointed Prime Minister of this country less than a month later, is now running a government struggling to balance a budget and deliver key services.
The first budget presented by the PNM decreased VAT from 15 per cent to 12.5 per cent but increased the number of items now being taxed, increased the personal allowance from $60,000 to $72,000.
It also decreased the subsidy on fuel, raising transport prices.
The Government is actively pursuing a cut in expenditure, managing to save $10 billion in 2016 due to cuts in government spending, according to the latest Auditor General’s report.
Still, the PNM’s 20 months in Government has been underpinned by a constant reminder of the country’s depleted resources, and statements that have been labelled as out of touch by some parts of the population.
‘We have a political culture of freeness’
Political analyst Derek Ramsamooj said the major challenge that confronted the present administration was leading the transition to restructure the society.
He said historically the PNM Government encouraged a number of programmes that sought to create a level of State patronage that while creating initial work, had now become an albatross around the neck of the State.
“The present economic demand that confronts T&T requires a drastic reduction of State patronage as exists by the work-fair programmes such as CEPEP and URP as well as a dependency on the private sector for State contracts as we see in the construction sector,” Ramsamooj said.
Ramsamooj said productive work and the removal of subsidies will become a necessity.
“The excuse that the removal of non-productive work programmes will fuel possible increase of criminal activity is an excuse for laziness in which people are only interested in revenue as opposed to being productive earners of revenue.
“We can never emerge as a strong economy if our people refuse to adhere to programmes which will improve our national productivity level.”
He said the challenge for the administration was to lead the transition out of patronage into productivity and out of corruption into effective procurement, out of work fair into creating sustainable productive jobs.
Ramsamooj said the responsibility of the present PNM was to change the societal value system and do what is in the interest of the Government and not in the interest of the party.
“The present administration, therefore, if it wishes to bring about change and transformation, must change the work ethos of our society.
“Dr Rowley’s leadership must indeed be a no-nonsense approach to productive work and one that engenders national patriotism.
“He said judging the PNM government by its political actions seems to suggest that their approach is incremental, taking small initiatives as opposed to making a quantum leap.
“The property tax is one of these incremental examples, as is the reduction in the fuel subsidy.
“There are numerous other initiatives that must be considered, such as allowing our currency to find its true market value, replacing national patronage programmes with means-testing programmes.”
The Government has already done this with the Government Assistance for Tuition Expenses programme (Gate).
Ramsamooj said what was clearly evident is that transitioning the society away from patronage by restructuring Gate, introducing the property tax and attempting to reduce state wastage, while incremental, are steps in the right direction if we wish to create a modern state.
“If you look at the legislative agenda and government programmes, the culmination of implementation is being structured to take place between mid-2018 and 2019 as the Government approaches the end of their term.”
Even in the midst of economic instability Ramsamooj said the PNM have been able to keep further political unrest at bay.
“I believe they have been able to cap whatever discontentment exists both within the PNM as well as various sectors of the national community.”
Asked how the PNM would fare if an election were called today, Ramsamooj said the party had a strong probability of returning to office.
Ghany: Disappointing performance by the PNM
Another political analyst, Dr Hamid Ghany was less complimentary of the Government’s performance.
In an interview, Ghany said the PNM’s overall performance in government since 2015 had been disappointing because they indicated that they were “red and ready” to govern and after almost 20 months in office, it seems that there is a lot of studying and analysis going on.
“Valuable time has been lost worrying about what the previous government did instead of addressing what this Government will do now that it is in office,” Ghany said.
Still, he said the population seemed to be giving the PNM a chance.
“I think that the population has decided that they will give this Government a chance to deliver on things that they said they were going to do.
“However, it appears that the Government does not have immediate answers to the predictable economic situation that they met with the decline of energy revenues since the end of 2014. The chance for them to shine in the face of dire economic prospects is now.”
Ghany said this particular incarnation of the PNM in government is the most left-wing PNM government in the party’s history, evident by a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the leaders of the PNM and Joint Trade Union Movement (JTUM) in August 2015.
“That may have helped to deliver the election victory to the PNM, but it handcuffed them from being able to seriously address all policy options for dealing with the economic crisis that any government was going to have to face after the 2015 election.
Ghany said it had been disappointing that in the 2017 budget and the mid-year review of that budget that no such specific measures were announced.
“The country is in a holding pattern. It needs to privatise or divest large sectors of the state enterprise sector to reduce the burden on the Treasury in respect of operating expenses and generate short-term cash from those sales of state enterprises.”
Ghany disagreed with Ramsamooj that the PNM stood a strong chance of being re-elected.
“If an election were called today, it would be difficult to predict the outcome because I think there would be a low voter turnout similar to the last local government election.
He was also strongly critical of the leadership provided by Rowley so far, calling him a “very good tap dancer who can talk his way out of difficult situations far more effectively that most others on the local political scene at this time”.
“I suspect that he is torn between the PNM party financiers who would like a more robust engagement of free market policies and the trade unions who are holding an MOU over his head that once broken will unleash an uncertain political outcome for him.
