Ramchand: Is economy ready?

INDEPENDENT SENATOR professor Ken Ramchand questioned whether the 2003/2004 Budget could effect the social transformation needed for Trinidad and Tobago to become a developed nation by 2020. Speaking during the Budget debate in the Senate yesterday, Ramchand declared: “No thought has been given to this transformation.” He said unless Government breaks the tradition of its predecessors of focusing on the offshore rather than the inshore economy, “we will be spinning top in mud.”

The senator stated that Government expenditure in education over the last decade proved his point eloquently. He lamented that while Government spending in education was increasing over the last ten years, “education is sinking” and no administration has dealt with the root causes of this situation. Ramchand knocked 2003/2004 educational development provisions of $232 million, $88 million and $5 million for secondary, primary and pre-primary schools respectively, arguing that Government’s priorities were backwards.