Foolish spending by government

THE EDITOR: A wise and prudent man puts aside a portion of his earnings during his productive years by way of savings or investment, in order to provide some form of sustenance for himself and his family during his winter years. A fool fritters away his earnings in the pursuit of fun and amusement and in the acquisition of expensive articles that do not endure and for which he in reality has little or no use for and are quickly discarded and ends up in later years existing in a state of poverty and solitude, abandoned by the friends that he gathered during his time of plenty. There seems to be a great deal of similarity between the observations above and the government’s present policy with regard to the energy sector. The government seems to be intent on covering the entire country in business enterprises based on the consumption of natural gas in large quantities, thereby hastening the ultimate depletion of our gas reserves and whether we care to admit it or not, gas and oil reserves like the proverbial “long rope” do have an end.

Like the fool, the government is investing huge sums of our income derived from our petrochemical resources in non productive investment which will provide absolutely no return from which future generations will benefit. One of the most important requirements which is being self sufficient in the production of food is being totally ignored, while we remain almost totally dependent on the import of foodstuff from abroad at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars yearly and which is increasing with every passing day. Even though the entire infrastructure of the country is in near shambles and grossly inadequate, there are plans underway to rebuild the city of Port-of-Spain, construct a modern road network throughout the country, construct a modern monorail transit system to connect the Southern and Eastern districts with points far West, not to mention the installation of an island wide street lighting project that will cost hundreds of millions of dollars and with no mention or provision for the maintenance of all these grandiose projects.

Meanwhile, thousands of citizens are left without the basic amenities such as pipe borne water, health facilities and the like, and not a single cent has been invested in the development of productive enterprises that will endure, provide a profit and create and maintain employment on a sustainable basis. It will certainly not be in my lifetime but I shudder to think of what the fate of our future generations will be when the last drop of oil and the last cubic foot of gas are sucked out of the ground. We will of course be left with several monuments to our stupidity and lack of planning and foresight, in the form of an empty abandoned new city, several abandoned sports stadia, a wide and unused road network in a state of collapse and a monorail network with no engines or carriages and covered in rust. We will also have a lot of hungry and starving people with nothing to eat and no more money to import food from abroad. Thankfully, I will not be around when that time comes. I am not a fatalist but merely a realist.

MARTIN KAVANAGH
La Romaine