DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

In an evening of glitz and glam­our, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) host­ed its an­nu­al Christ­mas fundrais­er on Sat­ur­day evening, mark­ing its first since re­turn­ing to Gov­ern­ment. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar used the oc­ca­sion to cau­tion of­fi­cials about a heav­ier work­load in the year ahead.

Open­ing her nine-minute ad­dress at the Den­nis Ramd­han Com­plex in Cou­va to Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and par­ty sup­port­ers all decked off in ball­go­wns and black-tie at­tire, Per­sad-Bisses­sar thanked sup­port­ers who stood by the par­ty dur­ing a decade in op­po­si­tion. Point­ing out that her ad­min­is­tra­tion has been in of­fice for just over sev­en months, she ac­knowl­edged that bu­reau­cra­cy had slowed the de­liv­ery of some cam­paign promis­es.

But she urged pa­tience, sig­nalling that more in­ten­sive work lies ahead as the Gov­ern­ment seeks to ac­cel­er­ate its agen­da.

“Some things take a lit­tle longer. Some­times, the sys­tems and the bu­reau­cra­cy, whilst we want to do every­thing yes­ter­day and to­mor­row, it’s not that easy. But I will nev­er, and we will nev­er give up. Please keep the faith,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar high­light­ed that her Gov­ern­ment has al­ready ad­vanced leg­is­la­tion and poli­cies to fight crime, strength­en pub­lic safe­ty, ex­pand the so­cial pro­tec­tion net, and re­build con­fi­dence in state in­sti­tu­tions. She said the ad­min­is­tra­tion is re­pair­ing weak­ened pub­lic ser­vice sys­tems, restor­ing dis­ci­pline, and re­build­ing trust through care, di­rec­tion, and mea­sure­ment, but added there is more work to do.

“For the UNC, the year ahead will be very de­ci­sive and a lot of work to be done, guys. So, brace your backs! To my MPs, sen­a­tors, and mem­bers of the cab­i­net, brace your backs. We have a lot of work to do in the new year.”

De­spite the cel­e­bra­to­ry tone, the Prime Min­is­ter’s ad­dress failed to men­tion Moody’s re­cent down­grade of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s out­look from sta­ble to neg­a­tive, rais­ing con­cerns among econ­o­mists.

“If I were in Gov­ern­ment, the ur­gen­cies that were raised in the Moody’s down­grade, I would tack­le them head on... be­cause a gen­uine cri­sis is emerg­ing. It’s emerg­ing in the en­er­gy sec­tor, and it’s emerg­ing in the sup­ply cov­er. They now point­ed to the fact that we are down to three months’ im­port cov­er and we were at five just the oth­er day. So, that’s a se­ri­ous thing when you get be­low three months, you are in an eco­nom­ic cri­sis,” econ­o­mist Dr Vanus James said.

James em­pha­sised the need for im­me­di­ate Gov­ern­ment ac­tion.

“If the im­port cov­er bites, it is go­ing to ef­fec­tive­ly trans­late in­to crime, soon­er rather than lat­er. So, this is, and this is the kind of crime the Amer­i­cans can’t help you with. So, this is not a mo­ment when speech­es are go­ing to be very help­ful when you’re fac­ing an eco­nom­ic cri­sis.”

Moody’s, in its re­port is­sued on Fri­day, said falling for­eign ex­change re­serves prompt­ed the re­vi­sion while af­firm­ing the coun­try’s Ba2 cred­it rat­ing. The agency warned that gov­ern­ment mea­sures may be in­suf­fi­cient to stem a 24 per cent de­cline in liq­uid forex re­serves over the past year. Stan­dard & Poor’s is­sued a sim­i­lar down­grade in Sep­tem­ber.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo de­scribed the down­grade as pre­ma­ture, ar­gu­ing that Moody’s failed to ac­count for the Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund and new poli­cies aimed at sta­bil­is­ing re­serves and sup­port­ing fu­ture up­grades.

But James not­ed that oil and gas mar­ket con­di­tions re­main chal­leng­ing, pre­dict­ing the bud­get may be ex­haust­ed with­out oil reach­ing the bench­mark of US$73.25 per bar­rel.

Mean­while, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed de­fend­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s mes­sag­ing, de­scrib­ing it as a demon­stra­tion of lead­er­ship and re­silience, but warned of po­ten­tial in­ter­nal op­po­si­tion.

“The en­e­mies are not just out­side. The en­e­mies are go­ing to be in­side. This was go­ing to al­ways be a lega­cy term. What she does in these five years is go­ing to be etched in our his­to­ry for decades to come. Part of it was the come­backs, win­ning. The sec­ond part of it is the changes. The third part of it is the es­tab­lish­ing of the new norms. And there’s go­ing to be ma­jor in­tent, ma­jor plans to up­set that es­tab­lish­ment.

“And there­fore, the work that has to be put in by min­is­ters, sen­a­tors, and board mem­bers, and every­body else who signed up for the job to car­ry through with the man­date led by the Prime Min­is­ter has to brace their backs for hard­er times, for greater op­po­si­tion, for in­tense mis­chief and chaos.”

Mo­hammed urged the Gov­ern­ment to close ranks and im­prove com­mu­ni­ca­tions, in­sist­ing that leaks of sen­si­tive in­for­ma­tion must be dealt with de­ci­sive­ly.