Undermining pillars of the economy

2026-01-26 - 08:52

CLAUDE A JOB IN THE space of a couple days, the UNC government has managed to unsettle the two most critical pillars of the TT economy – energy and manufacturing – in a manner that raises serious questions about its economic judgement and strategic intent. On one front, the Prime Minister launched an unprovoked and unusually aggressive public attack on the Energy Chamber, dismissing it as “self-serving” and “greedy” and signalling a refusal to engage with it as a stakeholder. Whatever legitimate criticisms may exist of the chamber, it remains the primary private-sector representative in an industry that generates the bulk of the country’s foreign exchange and fiscal revenue. Consequently, a government which is serious about economic stability ought not to casually antagonise the energy sector in public in the dismissive manner of the Prime Minister and her energy minister, who opted to attend a similar conference in India instead of accepting the local chamber’s invitation. Almost simultaneously, the country learned of a proposed 76 per cent increase in the price of natural gas to non-energy manufacturers. This is not a negligible adjustment; it is a shock of a magnitude that threatens competitiveness, employment, and price stability. Manufacturing firms already face rising electricity costs and new levies, as well as existential threats to their Caricom market, due to the Prime Minister’s intemperate rhetoric about other members of this body. If deemed necessary, why couldn’t the increase be on a phased basis? Or even more alarming, is it actually on a phased basis and the 76 per cent increase is phase one? Further, what are the implications for the much talked about and much needed diversification, and foreign direct investment? Individually, each of these actions might be defended as fiscal discipline or political resolve. Taken together, they point to something far more troubling: a government seemingly willing to pick simultaneous and unnecessary fights with the very sectors that sustain the economy. The inevitable billion-dollar question is: to what end? Unfortunately, I don’t have the answer, nor can I come up with a reasonable theory. Indeed, I believe even a blind man could see that undermining confidence in one while imposing cost shocks on the other is not reform; it is recklessness, which would undoubtedly have an adverse impact on the fragile economy. Despite this, I am prepared to give the government the benefit of this doubt and concede there may be a method to its seeming madness of which I am unaware. Consequently, if there is a coherent economic strategy behind these moves, it must be clearly communicated to the population. In the absence of such clarity, the impression being created to some (most?) of us (fairly or unfairly) is that the government has declared war not on inefficiency, but on the economy itself.