Need for Vision 2020?

A HUGE exercise is now in progress aimed, we are told, at formulating a national strategic development plan to guide the country to developed status by 2020. As yet we have no clear idea of what specifically this effort and this plan is all about but, on the face of it and on principle, we are ready to support any action or activity that would promote the general development of our country and a better life for our people. So we must wait to see exactly what the Vision 2020 committee and its 28 sub-committees are engaged in; the material that emerges from their deliberations and public consultations, before we can honestly venture an opinion. On Friday, the Ministry of Planning and Development hosted its first public consultation aimed at informing “stakeholders” of this work in progress, with Minister Camille Robinson-Regis expressing the need for the national community to get involved in the formulation of the Vision 2020 national plan.

It is our view that every patriotic and productive citizen of Trinidad and Tobago would not only like to see the country achieve this objective, graduating from developing to developed status, from third world to first world, but is positively and confidently expecting that it will, with or without any Vision 2020. Such confidence, of course, is derived from the fact that little TT is blessed with abundant natural resources which, if calculated in terms of per head of popuation, may well make our twin-island state one of the richest countries in the world. Right now, for example, we are experiencing a petro-dollar bonanza with the price of crude oil reaching an all time record high of US$47 per barrel. And the forecast is that the figure will either zoom higher or remain around that level within the near future having regard, on the one hand, to the mounting demand from an expanding world economy — recovery in Japan, spectacular growth in China — and, on the other, the inability of producers to significantly increase supplies, especially with the violent crisis in occupied Iraq and political instability in Venezuela.

But while we are being informed about Vision 2020, nobody in the Government has seen fit to inform the public about escalating oil prices, the extent to which TT is benefiting from them and what is being done with the increased revenue. At the same time, we must also wonder whether the promised review of the tax regime on foreign companies operating in our gas sector has been implemented and what does it mean in our favour. In this context, we must ask: Does the quest for Vision 2020 exclude the need for a more responsible, accountable and transparent government?

Indeed, it is our belief that TT possesses the economic wherewithal not only to achieve the objective of developed nation status but, even beyond that, to provide for the basic needs of all its citizens. All that the country needs in this enterprise is not any specific plan or vision but, rather, a good, honest, efficient and progressive government, one that is prepared to deal equitably with all sectors of the society and to take the electorate in its confidence every step of the way. Developed status, we believe, will be achieved as an inevitable consequence of government fulfilling its central responsibility, that is using the considerable resources of the country to satisfy the civilised needs of its people. The government, in our view, needs no special vision to do what it was elected to do.