1 week Ago By [email protected] (Raffique Shah)
Discomfiture was writ large on the face of Prime Minister Stuart Young, SC, as he engaged in what many a Trinidadian would term “gimmickry”, serving the people their wants and not necessarily their needs. At a public meeting in San Fernando he felt compelled to respond to the UNC’s bulging bag of election promises to the electorate. The UNC leadership knows well that the cost of implementing a slew of tax-breaks, increased salaries and services to the people and the host of other “goodies” they appear to be drawing from a magician’s hat, will be prohibitive.
They are not practical, given the fall in revenues from our main goods and services. But, audiences at their meetings react to their offers like children at a party when the piñata bursts. The PNM seems to fear that many in the electorate will buy into the UNC’s free-for-all.
It is in that context that PM Young came out making a few promises of his own. While I agree with improvements across all sectors, especially in wages, salaries and benefits, we need to be realistic with our expectations. Those of us with a little more than common sense know that for every percentage increase in salaries and benefits for public sector workers, that is a huge liability for the treasury.
In 2022, Dr Rowley was quoted as saying the 4% increase in backpay for public sector workers over a six-year period rather than eight years would cost the state $2.5 billion. The “gimme gimme” must have been there all along, but in this local setting the PNM has mastered the art of controlling the country.
They have, however, learnt to regret this when the people just kept wanting more and more, insatiable in their wants and unwilling to work as hard for them. I am not against sharing the wealth of the country, but people must learn to give back to their countries. Increasingly, what we hear is: what my country is doing for me and what it has done for me.
Never: what I can do for my country. We need to get that spirit of patriotism by putting country first and what we are doing to help our country. Remember, the grass is almost never greener on the other side.
There’s always a catch. When Dr Eric Williams was prime minister and finance minister, for many years he would read out his budget statement and save the “goodies” for the last. Since the budget invariably came around Christmas time, Santa Eric would dole out five cents less per gallon of gas at the pumps, a few dollars less for alcohol, and similar handouts.
The party faithful would genuflect before their “God-like” leader and sing his praises to no end. I repeat: in our economic and government systems there is room for largess; give the people something tangible. But when the revenue streams started drying up, as was inevitable, the government was forced to cut back on all the freeness they themselves offloaded.
By the time Dr Williams died, the oil and gas reserves and revenues started drying up, it was George Chambers, not Williams, who felt the wrath of the masses. Williams’ last hurrah was the sympathy boat he bestowed on the populace that gave Chambers a landslide victory at the 1983 polls, leaving Karl Hudson-Phillips and his Organisation for National Reconstruction (ONR) with “not a damn seat”. But the said handouts would return in 1986 to bite the PNM big-time.
The chorus line altered. The masses now sang, “Chambers duncey” and then proceeded to wipe the PNM off the map. It was 33-3.
It could have been 36-0 but with the ONR/NAR big-shots drunk with their historic victory, they failed to pursue recounts with any urgency. So it was that Patrick Manning in San Fernando East and Muriel Donawa and Morris Marshall in the debris that was left in Laventille and urban Port of Spain who lived to fight another day. Manning rose like a phoenix, and painfully and slowly rebuilt the PNM almost single-handedly and went on to recapture power in 1991 with 22 seats.
Basdeo Panday and others undermined ANR Robinson, who led the NAR, and went on to form the UNC which took 13 seats in 1991. That image of Panday in opposition became his trademark in his remaining years, broken only once when he formed a coalition with the very same man he betrayed, ANR Robinson: 17-17-2. PM Young knows the various permutations of deficits that will follow any minor largesse the government will want to use to win hearts, minds and pockets.
But he does not need them. What’s to fear at elections that you could lose if voters believe the lotto-like refrain: everybody wins. That sounds good today, but six months into power the pain they would have to inflict on people will cause riots in this country.
If the UNC wins and they distribute “freeness”, we will all end up suffocating in IMF medicine..
