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Independence hopes

May 27, 2011 Editorial

Yesterday we commemorated the 45th anniversary of our independence from Britain. What this means is that it is almost half a century since we had to start taking responsibility for our progress. Sure we know that “independence” did not mean that the imperialists had quite washed their hands of us. In fact, our very gift of independence was a consequence of imperialist machinations in collaboration with their local proxies. But we soon learnt (we hope) that this did not spare us from dealing with the contingencies that confront any small, underdeveloped, third world state.
What was very interesting at the onset of our “independent” journey was that behind the jockeying for political ascendency, our political leaders by and large agreed on the methodology for developing our country. Their common socialist ideology had them make common cause to enable the state to control the “commanding heights of the economy”. From this control, profits were to be deployed to develop and diversify the economy to place it on a sustainable growth path. Their intentions were admirable, but we all know that the project failed.
We may continue to argue as to how much of that failure was on account of the inherent contradictions of the model itself or on the political ambitions of the leaders that made them exacerbate the ethnic cleavages immanent in the society. A house divided never has been able to stand for very long. Be that as it may, we have to admit that we still have not hit upon a formula that would place us on that sustainable developmental road.
Major sectors of our traditional economy are still quite troubled. We have invested massively in sugar for short-term expediencies but a concatenation of events (some unforeseen) have left the industry in a more precarious state than ever before. Shortage of workers in the sugar cane fields is now a severe limiting condition. As a commentary on our fractured politics, it is unfortunate that some opposition figures who complained bitterly about “astronomical” wage increases in the sugar industry have not found it necessary to exhort their supporters to fill the crippling labour shortage.
Bauxite is also in the doldrums; proximately because of a slump in world demand, occasioned by the global recession. But in the medium and long term, unrealistic labour expectations may entrench the anaemic production levels, since the ore can be sourced much cheaper from alternative locations. Gold is doing very well because of uncertainties in the dollar and the euro, but the profits are not being ploughed back into development. It continues to be the classic “enclave” industry with few forward or backward linkages.
One bright spot has been the consistency of our only indigenously developed industry – rice. Within the broader ambit of food security, this is an area that must be expanded by the government in collaboration with our farmers. In addition to anchoring a vibrant growth industry that brings in valuable foreign currency, the rice industry plays a crucial role in reducing poverty, since a majority of farmers are small farmers with less than five acres under cultivation.
A few days ago, the head of the T&T Central Bank defined the “entire policy framework” of his government. It was, he asserted, “Oriented towards sustainable development…(and) focused on competitiveness, entrepreneurship, diversification, innovation, new investments targeting industries higher up the knowledge and technology value chain, the greening of existing competitive industries as well as new green investments, and service industry expansion all geared towards exports and international market share.
All of this is tied in with higher through puts from the tertiary and vocational sector.”
Our government has unveiled a Low Carbon Development Strategy that encompasses many of the above policies. Very significantly, the strategy is not framed within any rigid ideology, but is rather, very pragmatic.
It is our hope that since the opposition is also not ideologically hidebound, they may see it fit to collaborate with the government of the day to ensure that our 50th independence commemoration sees us much further down the road of sustainable development.

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