Parliamentary Digest

Winston Dookeran has improved both the content of his speeches and his delivery of them. In the Lower House last Friday, his head nodded noticeably less. His hands gesticulated less violently. Even Opposition Leader Kamla Persad Bissessar tapped her desk at one point during his speech. And much — not most, but much — of his contribution would have been understood by the average person.

The topic under debate was an Act to establish a Fair Trading Commission. The Bill, as Trade and Industry Minister Ken Valley explained was “not against monopolies but against the abuse of monopolistic powers.” Valley even portrayed the Bill as a populist one, saying that “while it may be an inconvenience, some may argue, to the business community to adhere to this legislation, it is in the interest of the society that this be done.”

Dookeran when he rose, however, suggested that certain clauses in the Bill might also be in the interest of Government Ministers. He noted that the Bill allowed for Ministerial intervention in deciding what constituted a merger that reduced competitiveness.

“This is sure to lead to loss of confidence by investors,” said Dookeran. He added that preference would be given to firms with political connections, and they would be the ones who would end up entering the market. “This appears to be a trend that is taking place in most of the legislation that is coming before us today,” Dookeran said. “The Bill, he added, “has to be rule-based, not discretion-based.”

But this was just the least of the sallies that Dookeran flung at the Government during his contribution. He did start off in typical intellectual fashion, but managed to restrain himself from becoming too technical. When he raised the issue of inflation, he made a few points and said, “I won’t go in any depth on this issue, except to point that there are indeed ways to handle that situation which the Government has yet to come to terms with.” According to Dookeran, it was the Government’s bad fiscal and monetary policy that was responsible for these inflation (although it seemed peculiar for a former Central Bank governor to claim that the Government directs monetary policy, since this is the purview of the Bank). But, as if to remind listeners of his economic expertise, he mentioned that the purpose of the Bill was to “remove distortions to the effective allocation of resources.” Dookeran then segued into his first attack. He asserted that he had concluded that the real source of distortion in the economy did not come from the competitive environment, but the Government’s economic programme. A recent study, he said, showed that it was the “dependent economy,” fuelled by government revenues, which was growing faster than the normal economy, “and therefore it is the major source distortion in the economy for it has generated all the problems we have found in terms of shortages” – in labour, commodities, goods, and services. But neither Speaker Barry Sinanan nor any Government MP followed the normal practice of asking Dookeran to identify the study – which perhaps reflected the level of attention he was commanding or, rather, not.

Dookeran quoted the study as asserting that political decision “floored traditional economic analysis.” This, he said, was why “in this country today we have good financial indices, but poor economic fundamentals.” Dookeran did not say, however, if the study (still unidentified, but sounding very much like Lloyd Best and Eric St Cyr) had created a new set of tools for economic analysis. And even when he accused the Government of using good financial indices as measures of good economic fundamentals, Dookeran did not explain why, when he was Governor of the Central Bank, he hadn’t changed the Bank’s measuring devices.

But Dookeran was in political, not technocratic, mode: “The truth is, it is the people who face the burden of poor economic fundamentals,” he said.

He went on to argue that the Fair Trading Act would not work unless put within the context of a “trade policy platform” and unless related pieces of legislation were modified, such as the Patents Act, the Integrated Circuits Act, the Geographical Indication Act, and so on. At the point Valley rose and asked Dookeran to clarify what he was saying.

Dookeran said that these Acts, although dealing with the same jurisdiction as the Fair Trading Bill, were not referred to in it. “You’ve read this legislation, right?” Valley asked. Dookeran, showing that he is still a political neophyte, answered Yes.

This allowed Valley, in wrapping up the debate, to demolish most of Dookeran’s contribution inside 15 minutes. Valley pointed out that Clause 21 of the Bill excluded patents, copyrights, registered designs, and trademarks. “I worked closely with him when he was at Central Bank,” said Valley. “Show and no substance.”

He even struck back at Dookeran’s take on inflation.

“If oil prices are high, you must have imported inflation,” said Valley. “As a trained economist, he knows that, or he ought to know that.”

Valley then turned his guns on Dookeran’s point about economic fundamentals. “I don’t know what are these core economic fundamentals he is talking about. In the same Central Bank report, the only negative indicator is inflation.”

Dookeran, however, did not hear any of this, having left soon after he finished his contribution. Which led Valley to remark, “I understand why the Member left after speaking.”