{"id":56528,"date":"2026-04-28T09:00:05","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T13:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/?p=56528"},"modified":"2026-04-28T09:00:05","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T13:00:05","slug":"nonsense-passes-for-governance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/?p=56528","title":{"rendered":"Nonsense passes for governance"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Raffique Shah
\nApril 18, 2026<\/em><\/p>\n

Raffique Shah<\/a>As a survivor of several economic recessions, more economic downturns than I could count as a child, I\u2019ve had to tighten my belt so much that my waistline simply doesn\u2019t exist anymore. When I make my not-too-often rides into the countryside, evidence of citizens experiencing tough economic times is there. Construction seems to have slowed down considerably and the presence of working-age young adults on the streets, just idling away the time, is painful to watch.
\n
\nThe Government\u2019s mixed messages to the population do not help. In one breath, it tells the population, all is well…well, not all, but most. Then in whispers that leak through the media, ministers are quoted as saying tougher times are ahead. They forge ahead with their multimillion-dollar projects, on the one hand; and on the other, they still can\u2019t make good on some of their promises of increased salaries that they made to workers in their manifesto.<\/p>\n

Land is being shared to a select few\u2014and with what money, I ask, will they construct, plant, work this land, etc? Many of the persons in receipt of this land are older than I am; and if they are not, they are very well near my 80 years. Now, before I go further, I should tell readers that Government\u2019s spokespersons will deny any such occurrences. They will say there is no recession: that is, we have not had a slowdown of the economy for three consecutive quarters.<\/p>\n

Those who suffer most in times like these are young professionals who are recently married and who landed well-paying packages and now have to pay the piper by way of hefty taxes and high mortgage rates. Many will lose their jobs, which compounds the hard times they face.<\/p>\n

In previous recessions, I recall heartbreaking scenes of such families handing the keys to their yet-unfinished homes to financial institutions, and then fleeing the country in the hope of making it elsewhere. Things have gotten so bad and so desperate with us that we can no longer afford to drink our sorrows away because even the alcohol is now out of reach of our pockets. I\u2019m not suggesting that we turn to mind-altering substances to drown our sense of despair, because alcohol has brought more bad than good to those who partake.<\/p>\n

During recessions, interests groups such as trade unions, co-operatives, and other financial institutions that are not banks, but to which properties are mortgaged, suggest alternatives to those so affected by the downturn of the economy. The institutions seldom agree to such changes in a financial system that institutionalises persistent poverty. There is no creativity. You are now a renter\/tenant in the very house you built for your comfort.<\/p>\n

In economies such as ours that are fortunate to have healthy industrial and commercial enterprises, oil and gas, at the very least, add to our revenue. However, these are cyclical commodities that go through boom-bust cycles. In turn, when their prices drop and our budgets have been pegged on higher prices, cutbacks and layoffs are inevitable.<\/p>\n

The funny thing about it is that unless there is an international disaster, like Iran and Lebanon wars, downturns are very predictable and can be planned for. In economies such as ours that are heavily dependent on our oil and gas revenue, by now we should be able to weather the storm of an economic depression better than most.<\/p>\n

Each government brings its own policies which they hope will bear on the slump and bring the time-consuming processes to \u00adappear to be solving the problem. But when you scrutinise their plans, you sense they are all authored by the same hands, delivered by the same international agencies (IMF, UNDP); in other words, we have no plan that \u00adspecifically caters to our needs or meets our \u00adrequirements. If the one-size-fits-all documents fail us, we can always blame them for our failure.<\/p>\n

Parties in power here will hope for any minuscule movement in the economy, usually around 0.5% or -0.5%. While I accept that in this global economy our interconnections are unavoidable, not once in the last 50 years have I seen innovative ideas from our local economists and financial gurus adopted by any government.<\/p>\n

What this means is no government has run the economy with an ounce of creativity. All have settled for the stereotypical projections of minor recovery or stagnation, or even depression. I boldly predict here that when this announcement is made off the standard document, we will have no change or recovery that we ought to see in the oil and gas sectors which will announce that they are proud to have been part of this huge leap from -0.3% to -0.1%.<\/p>\n

This is the kind of damn nonsense that passes for governance in this country. They have done nothing but copy the failures of others. Are we so stupid and blind that we will accept that?<\/p>\n

Yes, apparently, we are.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Raffique Shah April 18, 2026 As a survivor of several economic recessions, more economic downturns than I could count as a child, I\u2019ve had to tighten my belt so much that my waistline simply doesn\u2019t exist anymore. When I make my not-too-often rides into the countryside, evidence of citizens experiencing tough economic times is … Continue reading Nonsense passes for governance<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[169],"class_list":["post-56528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-tt","tag-raffique-shah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56528"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56529,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56528\/revisions\/56529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}