Govt to blame for LNG sell-out, inflation

THE EDITOR: The following are three current issues on which we as a people should ponder:
1) Qatar has a population of around 900,000 people and a governmental system that more resembles a semi-feudal monarchy than a democracy. The position of Chief of State is hereditary — he is in effect King, and up to a couple of years ago had the power to appoint all of the so called people’s representatives (you are right they were all invariably family and close friends). This government is able to deliver to its people a standard of living far superior to that enjoyed by us in almost all respects largely because it owns most of the country’s oil and gas operations (we will avoid the issue of corruption for now).

An example of this is that the state-owned Qatar Petroleum owns 63 percent interest in its LNG plants which are among the largest in the world — our Government of course owns all of ten percent of ours. Could one of our many energy or economics gurus explain how the semi-feudal monarchy of Qatar was able to achieve such control over its gas (and other resources) while our Government in comparison owns so little (and the dividends on this only come to us after the foreign companies have extracted most of the profit at the top end when they sell “our” gas to the LNG plant without passing it through NGC)? Do we need Vision 2020 to see that unless we do something about Government our patrimony will stay with foreigners and we will remain Third World and forever developing?

2)  It is written that “most continuing inflations are initiated and sustained when people, groups, businesses, government and foreigners all together demand or try to spend more than the economy can produce at full employment.” The aforementioned and a little common sense will tell us that cartels/monopolies, liquidity, increased spending by foreigners and government, state inefficiencies, price fixing, waste/inefficiency, low productivity, super profits, lack of productive investment opportunities, increasing consumption, speculation, corruption etc, all fuel inflation.

One school of thought holds that wage increases, without increases in productivity, also do; another suggests inflation causes wage increases and not the other way around. The primary reason for the latter belief is that the process for agreeing wage increases (particularly those of ordinary workers) are consensual, long term and can even favour employers while most other inflationary factors operate freely in the marketplace with little or no controls.

In TT we also have a large US dollar economy in which increasing numbers of foreigners and locals operate. The impact of this and the inefficiency/profligacy of Government on TT’s economy are the two major causes of inflation in the country. It would make more sense for our UWI economists to focus on these impacts rather than try to propagate ideas that are simply not grounded in proven economy theory relevant to us or indeed common sense.

3) Successive governments have acknowledged failure in delivering housing units in accordance with the needs of the population — needs which, based on the most recent Government estimate, is in the region of some 100,000 units. Could this be the explanation for such endemic squatting in this country?

Is it really possible that squatting has come about as a result of the failure of Government to provide for the housing needs of the people of TT? If this is so does it mean that the squatter is a creation of Government? Doesn’t this suggest that if we did something about Government squatters would, in greater part, cease to be? If we do not insist on performance now from Government (not as pie in the sky in a 2020 Vision) are we not also contributing to the problem? Will squatting not get worse if, we the people do not take action against Government?

EUGENE A REYNALD
Port-of-Spain