Tag Archives: government spending

Two Fridays ago, I visited my neighbourhood’s favourite food store. I had gone to pick up one item. I saw an older man being helped by a woman as I entered the aisle.  Nothing appeared unusual, just a younger person helping an older one with his purchase. However, everything turned …

Stephen R Covey, the American author of First Things First, said: ‘We are free to choose our actions… but we are not free to choose the consequences of these actions.’  As a nation, we need to contemplate this as we mourn the loss of the four men in a recent …

This week’s blackout taught us a great lesson: the street windscreen wiper boys at the West Mall traffic lights are human! Not only are they human and not freaks intent on mischief, but they are also brave entrepreneurs. Who would have thought?  When anxiety levels were rising, they, who reportedly live …

Our country has been widely shamed internationally by the Trinidad and Tobago Coast Guard’s fatal shooting of an illegal migrant baby.  The use of the label ‘accident’, the premature ducking of responsibility and due process as well as the crude, partisan political exchanges have compounded the shame. For the moment, …

“[…] No, no—WASA should not and cannot be privatised! There are some entities which are what you call in economics, natural monopolies. For an economy like Trinidad and Tobago, the production of water is a natural monopoly and the state should do it. “[…] We are going to give WASA …

“[…] Non-energy revenues have fallen in 2020-2021 and for next fiscal, 2021-2022, it is going to be worse—partly because people pay taxes on the previous year’s numbers and partly because the recovery is going to be slower than expected because of the state of emergency and the impact of the …

At the Panorama semi-finals two weeks ago, I became involved in a discussion with Eintou Springer, her daughter Attilah and an official of Pan Trinbago. The discussion turned to how Pan Trinbago spent the taxpayers’ money it received from complicit governments in the past and apparently continues on the same path. …

An Economist article (2011) defined ‘elites’ as people who shape the world without anyone noticing. The rich and powerful leverage their privileged status to exercise decisive control over the way society is organised and developed. I am thankful that Gregory Aboud has opened this discussion. While he did not define …

After digesting Gregory Aboud’s insightful commentary in the Trinidad Express, it behooves me to offer a retort. His “Silence of The Elites” piece is chicanery masked as concern for country and changing the status quo. Aboud may genuinely believe that he is offering a compelling and emphatic critique of his …

This column was one of the first among regular commentaries to identify that Government slackness was embracing criminality, and to make dire predictions about where this would lead. The assertion was met with dismay on the cocktail circuit. A well regarded commentator suggested to me that our governments were ‘mooks’ …

Repeat after me: “The Treasury is empty.” “The Treasury is empty.” “Again!” In psychology, there is something called the “illusory truth effect.”  Essentially, it says that a lie repeated often enough becomes believable, not only by persons hearing it but also by the people repeating it. The term only gained …

“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.” This is one of the first quotes you learn when trying to understand Monitoring and Evaluation. Given current realities in Trinidad and Tobago, it seems applicable. I recently finished reviewing the National Budgets presented during the period …