Be­fore every gen­er­al elec­tion, com­pet­ing par­ties hop­ing to form the next gov­ern­ment present man­i­festos out­lin­ing their goals and plans if elect­ed. Did the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ful­fil its am­bi­tious promis­es from the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion? A clos­er look at their man­i­festo re­veals a mix of achieve­ments and un­met goals. With the next gen­er­al elec­tion im­mi­nent, the Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk delves in­to the roadmap the rul­ing PNM pre­sent­ed to the pop­u­la­tion ten years ago, ex­am­in­ing the mea­sur­able goals and ac­com­plish­ments dur­ing their tenure.

Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia In­ves­tiga­tive Jour­nal­ist

joshua.seemu­n­gal@guardian.co.tt

Lead­ing up to the Au­gust 10, 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion, the in­cum­bent Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment par­ty pre­sent­ed its man­i­festo, “The Way For­ward.” As the win­ning man­i­festo, it was the doc­u­ment to guide gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy over the PNM’s next five years in of­fice. The man­i­festo had 12 sub-cat­e­gories list­ed. Those ex­am­ined: To­ba­go, Cre­ative and Cul­tur­al In­dus­tries, Sup­port­ing Vul­ner­a­ble Groups, En­er­gy, Sports Tourism, Di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, Man­u­fac­tur­ing, Hous­ing, Pro­cure­ment, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Works and Trans­port, and Cre­at­ing a Dig­i­tal So­ci­ety. How­ev­er, agri­cul­ture was not ex­am­ined be­cause the cat­e­go­ry did not list spe­cif­ic, mea­sur­able goals.

Of the mea­sur­able goals list­ed in the 12 sub-cat­e­gories, 42 per cent of ini­tia­tives were ful­ly im­ple­ment­ed, 42 per cent were not im­ple­ment­ed, and 16 per cent were par­tial­ly im­ple­ment­ed. The cat­e­go­ry with the high­est num­ber of un­met goals was ‘Cre­at­ing a Dig­i­tal So­ci­ety,’ which failed to meet 13 out of its 18 tar­gets, re­sult­ing in a non-im­ple­men­ta­tion rate of 72 per cent. In con­trast, the cat­e­go­ry with the most com­plet­ed goals was ‘En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries,’ which met sev­en of its nine tar­gets. An im­ple­men­ta­tion rate of 78 per cent.

Ini­tia­tives That Were Not Im­ple­ment­ed/Goals Not Met:

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry–Four Un­met Goals

• “Con­struc­tion of a new state-of-the-art DNA and Foren­sic Cen­tre.”—The new DNA and Foren­sic Cen­tre was not com­plet­ed. In April 2023, Min­is­ter Hinds said that a par­cel of land, a floor plan, and a con­trac­tor were iden­ti­fied to con­struct a new Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in St Joseph. He said the fa­cil­i­ty will cost around $204 mil­lion.

• “Con­struc­tion of a new prison in To­ba­go.”—A new prison in To­ba­go was not com­plet­ed. In Sep­tem­ber 2023, Guardian Me­dia re­port­ed that the struc­ture of the To­ba­go Prison was threat­ened by coastal ero­sion.

• “Ac­qui­si­tion of he­li­copters for the Na­tion­al Air Unit to be manned by the T&T Air Guard.”—No new he­li­copters were ac­quired dur­ing the five-year term.

• “Es­tab­lish a spe­cialised mul­ti-agency bor­der in­ter­dic­tion unit to tack­le the il­le­gal im­por­ta­tion of nar­cotics, weapons, and oth­er con­tra­band items.”

Works and Trans­port–Three Un­met Goals

• The new To­co Fer­ry Port is be­ing de­signed—The project has seem­ing­ly gone cold. Ahead of the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion, in 2019, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Row­ley turned the sod for the project. In 2022, Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan said the project was in its ear­ly stages. There has been no ma­jor up­date since.

• Con­struc­tion of the new Moru­ga Fish­ing Port—The project has start­ed but is yet to be com­plet­ed.

• Ac­qui­si­tion of 300 new bus­es to aug­ment the PTSC fleet to 500 op­er­a­tional bus­es at any giv­en time.

Cre­at­ing a Dig­i­tal So­ci­ety–13 Un­met Goals

• The PNM will de­vel­op and im­prove broad­band and cloud in­fra­struc­ture and cre­ate a na­tion­al dig­i­tal data­base.

• Ac­cess–en­sur­ing high-speed broad­band in­ter­net ac­cess ac­com­pa­nied by the req­ui­site ICT in­fra­struc­ture is avail­able for all cit­i­zens, es­pe­cial­ly schools.

• Da­ta—cre­at­ing an elec­tron­ic pop­u­la­tion reg­is­ter for every cit­i­zen and res­i­dent, re­mov­ing the need for cit­i­zens to sub­mit da­ta sep­a­rate­ly to each agency.

• The PNM will cre­ate a dig­i­tal pub­lic ser­vice through an e-gov­er­nance ecosys­tem.

• As far as pos­si­ble, all gov­ern­ment ser­vices will be de­liv­ered on­line. Busi­ness process­es will be re-en­gi­neered, and the mind­set of pub­lic of­fi­cers trans­formed to rad­i­cal­ly im­prove the pub­lic cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ence.

• The PNM Gov­ern­ment will en­gage com­mu­ni­ty in­flu­encers, es­pe­cial­ly our tech-savvy youth, ap­point dig­i­tal com­mu­ni­ty li­aisons, and cre­ate dig­i­tal com­mu­ni­ty por­tals.

• The PNM will sup­port and fa­cil­i­tate re­mote work­ing and work-from-home in both the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors.

• Up­date and pro­claim the Da­ta Pro­tec­tion Act; and the Elec­tron­ic Trans­ac­tion Act.

• De­vel­op and im­ple­ment a na­tion­al cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty pol­i­cy and frame­work.

• The PNM will de­vel­op a na­tion­al e-iden­ti­ty for all cit­i­zens and res­i­dents.

• The PNM will de­vel­op a na­tion­al dig­i­tal data­base to sup­port all sec­tors of the econ­o­my.

• The PNM will de­vel­op mul­ti­ple broad­band points of en­try in Trinidad, start­ing in lo­ca­tions such as PoS, San­do, and Ch­agua­nas.

• Es­tab­lish a tech in­vest­ment fund and tech pro­mo­tion and de­vel­op­ment com­pa­ny.

Cre­ative and Cul­tur­al In­dus­tries–Eight Un­met Goals

• Pro­vide fis­cal mea­sures aimed at in­creas­ing the per­cent­age of lo­cal mu­sic played on ra­dio sta­tions.

• Es­tab­lish­ment of a Cre­ative Am­bas­sador­ship Pro­gramme.

• Artists’ Coun­cil and Board.

• Arts Man­age­ment and Fi­nan­cial Ser­vices Task Force.

• Es­tab­lish and pro­mul­gate a lo­cal con­tent guide­line for lo­cal me­dia hous­es.

• Col­lect and pub­lish lo­cal cul­tur­al sta­tis­tics.

• Es­tab­lish per­ma­nent state-of-the-art fa­cil­i­ties for artists at ports of en­try.

• Trav­el sub­si­dies for artists to CAL des­ti­na­tions.

Di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion–One Un­met Goal

• Waive in­come tax for start-ups and small and medi­um com­pa­nies less than three years old.

Sup­port­ing Vul­ner­a­ble Groups: So­cial Ser­vices De­liv­ery–Five Un­met Goals

• Tax con­ces­sions for those who sup­port chil­dren’s homes and fam­i­lies in need.

• In­cen­tives for pri­vate sec­tor or­gan­i­sa­tions that de­sign sys­tems for work-at-home or re­duced work from of­fice, es­pe­cial­ly for sin­gle moth­ers and sin­gle fa­thers.

• In­cen­tivise the pri­vate sec­tor to en­gage in phil­an­thropy.

• The PNM will cre­ate a Na­tion­al So­cial Ser­vices Card Sys­tem.

• Pro­vide shel­ters for dis­placed men with de­pen­dents.

Man­u­fac­tur­ing–Four Un­met Goals

• Im­prov­ing ac­cess to fi­nance and for­eign ex­change.

• Im­ple­ment an elec­tron­ic funds trans­fer frame­work to al­low all pay­ments to the gov­ern­ment to be made elec­tron­i­cal­ly

• Sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly clear off all out­stand­ing VAT re­fund

• An in­de­pen­dent qual­i­ty ac­cred­i­ta­tion body by 2022

En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries–Two Un­met Goals

• To in­crease oil pro­duc­tion, in­crease ac­tiv­i­ty and cre­ate jobs–in­crease oil pro­duc­tion, in­crease ac­tiv­i­ty and cre­ate jobs - Crude oil pro­duc­tion de­clined by eight per cent in 2023 from 2022, ac­cord­ing to Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries da­ta. Un­der the Gov­ern­ment be­tween 2015 and 2023, there was a 31.7 per cent de­cline in oil pro­duc­tion. Last Ju­ly, a sto­ry by Oil Now mag­a­zine, claimed that T&T’s nat­ur­al gas pro­duc­tion dipped be­low its low­est lev­els since 2002.

• En­cour­age EE (Elec­tric­i­ty Ef­fi­cien­cy) re­ward­ing house­holds with the low­est elec­tric­i­ty us­age

Hous­ing–Five Un­met Goals

• The PNM will sim­pli­fy the pro­ce­dures for ob­tain­ing plan­ning, build­ing and reg­u­la­to­ry ap­provals, in­clud­ing EMA ap­proval, con­struc­tion per­mits, li­cences, con­struc­tion tax in­cen­tives, trad­ing in hous­ing, home im­prove­ment grants, hous­ing con­struc­tion, land set­tle­ment, squat­ter reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion, vil­lage im­prove­ment and land and build­ing de­vel­op­ment ... The ob­jec­tive is to elim­i­nate the red tape that cur­rent­ly hin­ders con­struc­tion projects.

• The ob­jec­tive is to re­duce the time for the en­tire build­ing ap­provals process to six months and the time for ob­tain­ing ap­proval for tax in­cen­tives to three months.

• Con­ces­sion­al home con­struc­tion loans with a two-year mora­to­ri­um on pay­ments

• Con­ces­sion­al land pur­chase loans with a two-year mora­to­ri­um on pay­ments

• Tax in­cen­tives will be pro­vid­ed to en­cour­age and stim­u­late the man­u­fac­ture of build­ing ma­te­ri­als and com­po­nents lo­cal­ly to re­duce the de­mand for for­eign ex­change for im­port­ed build­ing ma­te­ri­als.

To­ba­go–Five Un­met Goals

• “Our com­mit­ment to To­ba­go’s au­ton­o­my re­mains and will be ac­cord­ed the high­est pri­or­i­ty in the new term of Par­lia­ment.” –To­ba­go has not re­ceived in­creased au­ton­o­my. Last De­cem­ber, Par­lia­ment failed to pass the Con­sti­tu­tion (Amend­ment) (To­ba­go Self-Gov­ern­ment) Bill 2022. It re­quired a three-fourths ma­jor­i­ty for pas­sage, but the Op­po­si­tion did not sup­port the bill.

• Col­lab­o­rate with the THA to re­struc­ture the air bridge and sea bridge op­er­a­tions.

• Con­struct a mod­ern Hope cor­rec­tion­al fa­cil­i­ty in To­ba­go

• Es­tab­lish­ment of the To­ba­go Train­ing Agency

• Fa­cil­i­tate and sup­port the THA in the es­tab­lish­ment of ded­i­cat­ed cruise ship berths

To­mor­row: A look at the PNM’s ini­tia­tives that were im­ple­ment­ed/goals met