Satirical take on how Colm is undertaking to diversify economy


The following satirical Letter to the Editor was sent to Wired868 by Niala Maharaj:

(Scene: The Right Honourable Colm Imbert, Minister of Finance, addresses Parliament).

Photo: Finance Minister Colm Imbert.
Photo: Finance Minister Colm Imbert.

Mr Speaker,

My friends on the other side claim our government is failing to manage the economy properly. This is absolutely untrue. Oil and gas prices have fallen, but through our clever management, other sectors of the economy are expanding.

Take, for example, the undertaking industry. Since we have come into power, business at funeral homes has more than tripled. And this has a multiplier effect. Vehicle importers are doing a roaring trade in hearses, which I have exempted from the new tax on large vehicles since the undertakers say if they can’t get more hearses, corbeaux will have to do the job of toting cadavers away.

The rapid expansion of the funeral industry opens up a variety of jobs. Hearse drivers, pall bearers, grave diggers, coffin constructors and black clothes importers are in high demand and young people are recognising these as lucrative and fulfilling career paths.

I am told by those in the field that there is nothing so gratifying as making a hole with clean edges and aesthetically pleasing proportions.

Photo: Comedians Tracy Morgan (left) and Chris Rock star in Screen Gems' comedy Death At A Funeral.
Photo: Comedians Tracy Morgan (left) and Chris Rock star in Screen Gems’ comedy Death At A Funeral.

Mr Speaker, upstream industries are also opening up opportunities. There is a huge demand for morticians, pathologists, bullet hole analysts and wreath makers.

A women’s group in Cedros has discovered a gap in the market for professional mourners and is getting more gigs than they can handle. Apparently some of them have expertise in ripping off their clothes and bawling, acquired in earlier careers in the nightclub industry.

And, Mr Speaker, this is not the only sector that is booming. Indigenous products and skills are having a veritable renaissance. Obeah practitioners are being rushed off their feet by clients unable to get treatment at our hospitals.

Reports are that black feathers have increased four-fold in price, and some fowl-owners are being accused of hoarding. People say they cannot get drugs, but that’s nonsense. Forward-looking farmers in Tobago have planted fields of fever bush, ti marie and zepepeep, which yield high returns.

Pundits are booked up for grah pujas and jharaying till the middle of next year. Babash makers have launched a whiskey-like new brand called Johnny Water.

Photo: Just buried.
Photo: Just buried.

They say, Mr Speaker, that when one door closes, a window opens somewhere, and it is true. Burglars are doing better than ever. And downstream industries are benefitting.

Dealers in used televisions, computers and jewellery are hiring extra staff, as are security firms, breeders of bad dogs and importers of barbed wire.

So you see, Mr Speaker, that the talk of recession is just the result of a cokey-eye gaze. Diversification is just a big word.

We know that when you squeeze a crapaud’s tail, its head does swell up. So we are squeezing the population’s tail in order to generate new ideas in their heads, stimulate their imaginations and create a new economic model.

As we speak, some of our entrepreneurs are on a trade mission to meet partners in Colombia and Mexico where they expect to make deals for generating foreign exchange for this country.

Photo: Comedian Chris Rock (right) in Death At A Funeral.
Photo: Comedian Chris Rock (right) in Death At A Funeral.

Let Moody’s and S&P mauvais-langue us, Mr Speaker. They don’t know that we are playing dead to catch corbeaux alive.

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

 

Editor’s Note: The preceding satirical pieces was submitted by Wired868 reader Niala Maharaj.

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5 comments

  1. Definitely more intelligent than anything uttered from the Mr. Imbert (Douen).

  2. Lolol…she giving him too much ideas…”Just Buried”…you not easy nah Lasana…where the bells and confetti?

  3. ‘importers of black clothes’ breeders of bad dogs’… yuh good, Niala 🙂

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