Merry Christmas to all

Yes, every year it seems, the race is on to be the first agency to run a Christmas ad or the first store to start selling Christmas stock. Patrick Manning has done one better, beating everyone to be the first to give Christmas gifts. And whereas us mere mortals have our gift giving confined (thank God) to family, friends and sometimes, the occasional co-worker, in one fell swoop Father Patmas has given largess to hundreds of thousands of Trinbagonians.

This extraordinary turn of events is all a bit perplexing. Back when I was studying at UWI and the PNM came into power one of the first things they attacked was the UNC’s Dollar for Dollar programme. It had been dismissed as a political ploy; a barely guarded means of ensuring votes, one that was so evil it threatened to ravage the economy and encumber the country’s growth.

Students across the country at that time waited anxiously to see how things would pan out and wondered whether we’d be forced to find the money to pay our full tuition ourselves.

As it turned out, Patrick Manning didn’t oppose to the partial scholarship, it seemed, just the name. The programme was continued under the appellate Gate and we were told originally that it would only be available to those who had begun their studies under the Dollar for Dollar system and be terminated when this group had completed their education.

Now the PNM has shown the mingpeling UNC how it’s done. Free education for all at all tertiary level institutes. And although on the surface it seems a wonderful goodie pulled out from the PNM’s bag of tricks — sorry — treats, it also raises many important questions.

The Budget’s expenditure programme is based on oil fetching US$35 per barrel, while the budget’s revenue projections utilise an oil price of US$45 per barrel. All this largesse — free education, new buildings, removal of income tax and Smart Cards to list the most obvious — depends on an entity that we as a country have no control over. The price of oil is determined by external factors and by entities that possess far greater power than we do.

To a large extent, we’re just along for the ride, feasting on the crumbs that fall from their banquet tables. It cannot be inconceivable to entertain the possibility of a change of fortunes. Just as one month the price of oil can be a record high, so can it be a record low the next.

And if that happens, what next? What measures have been put in place to deal with the contingency that things may happen that have not been planned? The 2006 Budget outlines a 30 percent increase in expenditure from the 2005 Budget. If it becomes impossible to positively finance this increase in expenditure, can we expect an address to the nation from our Prime Minister explaining that he’s sorry but all handouts must come to an end with immediate effect or our collective a** is grass? The most disappointing aspect of this new Budget is how little things have changed essentially.

The PNM continues its policy of giving handouts, a thinly disguised means of keeping dependent the sector of society that is most disadvantaged and least willing to break its cycle of dependency. The so called Smart Card has CEPEP written all over it, the same CEPEP that he promises will be scaled down once unemployment has been reduced. Which essentially means this fetid economic drain hole may very well be around forever.

The plan to use Namdevco to buy basic and agricultural foods in bulk in order to reduce food prices calls to mind one of my mother’s favourite phrases. Together with the introduction of the Smart Cards it is an example of Government "spinning top in mud."

What is needed is a conscientious plan to inject new life into our dying agricultural sector, together with strict measures being put in place to regularise and bring to heel the near autonomy that the food sector currently enjoys. And with the removal of the 25 percent investment deduction in hotel equity investments, the deferred annuity plans for the purchase of a home and the $10,000 deduction for credit unions and co-operatives, Prime Minister Patrick Manning’s bag of gifts seems to have a heavy portion of charcoal included. Ho, ho, ho indeed.

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