Mariano Browne
Financial resources are always scarce for any government, given the wide range of options and competing interests it must choose among. Therefore, any government should have a well-articulated rationale to guide its choice of priority projects. It must also have the financial discipline necessary to maintain its finances and keep the country’s development programme focused on results.
Despite the booms, successive governments in Trinidad and Tobago, regardless of political party, have struggled to achieve their stated objectives. The ministries with the biggest allocations have been health, national security and education, the ministries with the largest employee payrolls. Yet it is doubtful whether the education system is providing the necessary skilled personnel to meet national objectives, and national security remains problematic as criminal gang activity remains high. Our failure to achieve national objectives has invariably been blamed on the lack of resources or political will, or implementation deficits in the public service.
Individual governments have had some success in expanding physical infrastructure, increasing educational access, and maintaining relatively stable institutions. However, the diversification project remains shallow despite several industries being targeted for growth, the digitalisation project is patchy, and productivity is low. Economic performance remains closely linked to the performance of the energy sector: oil, natural gas, LNG, petrochemicals, and related industries. This dependence on one sector exposes the economy to a high degree of volatility.
First, there was the oil boom from 1974 to 1984, followed by a period of austerity from 1985 to 1993 and a slow recovery until the natural gas boom of 1999 to 2014. The last boom coincided with, and was exacerbated by, the commodity supercycle (1995-2014), which was triggered by China’s rapid industrialisation and urbanisation. Then came the depression, which lasted from 2015 to 2022, driven by declining natural gas production and low energy prices.
It is tempting to think that Trinidad and Tobago is on the cusp of another boom, propelled by the monetisation of the Loran/Manatee and Dragon gas fields. Even if natural gas production increased to its historic highs, and that is extremely problematic, how will these energy rents be deployed? Transfers and subsidies now account for more than 50% of recurrent expenditure, with less than 3% going to investment expenditure. There will be tremendous incentive to maintain the status quo.
The reality is that hydrocarbon resources are depleting, and T&T is a mature geological province. Further, climate change is upon us, which suggests a declining role for fossil fuels. What does sustainable development mean and look like? In the last 26 years, we have had Vision 2020, Growth poles, Vision 2030 and now the Revitalisation Blueprint. Why do these plans not bear fruit and lead to transformation? There are two principal reasons this country is not achieving the success its transformation plans are meant to deliver, and both are systemic.
First, major reforms in education, public administration, pension systems, or industrial policy often require 10–20 years of consistent implementation. However, political parties/ governments typically think within a five-year electoral horizon, and there is little consistency between administrations in the choice of priority projects.
Changes in government lead to a loss of momentum and different priorities. A good example of this is the renaming of ministries, the creation of new ministries, and the transfer of responsibilities between ministries. Administrations often choose projects with visible short-term benefits and reverse the previous administration’s policies. Often, much-needed but difficult reforms are delayed.
The second systemic problem is organisational. Viewed through a public policy lens, T&T’s experience is less a story of governments lacking objectives. Many administrations have identified similar priorities—economic diversification, improved public services, lower crime rates, public sector reform, and fiscal sustainability—but have struggled to translate plans into sustained outcomes due to institutional weaknesses, political incentives, resource volatility, and external shocks. These matters undoubtedly influence how a government performs. However, this misses a more fundamental systemic weakness.
That organisational issue begins at the Cabinet level. Decisions may be made in Cabinet, but there is no structure for prioritisation, budget allocation, inter-ministry coordination, and follow-up. How are the Cabinet’s objectives (e.g., Vision 2030 or the UNC Manifesto) coordinated? If the civil service is the Cabinet’s executing arm, where is this function exercised? Ministries are not silos and require interdepartmental cooperation to function effectively. Implementation of cabinet decisions is carried out by ministries, agencies, state enterprises, and statutory corporations, all of which require coordination among them.
The Cabinet Secretariat is a post office for moving and curating Cabinet notes. This unit is managed by the senior permanent secretary, the “head of the public service”. But this position is a titular honorific only and has no constitutional power. Any coordination that occurs is informal and largely depends on the prestige and influence of the office holder. It may be argued that this role is played by the Ministry of Finance since the allocation of resources determines the priorities. This confuses the role of paymaster with operational control and coordination. This lack of coordination at the Cabinet level leads to a lack of accountability. How is the performance of ministers and their respective ministries measured and evaluated?
Governments have no control over external circumstances, but they have control over the governance structures and the systems and procedures required to achieve national objectives.
Mariano Browne is the Chief Executive Officer of the UWI Arthur Lok Jack Global School Of Business
