Dookeran tells Govt: Caroni not just real estate

Dookeran, a former Central Bank Governor said that from 2002 to 2004, agriculture had declined by some 30 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) according to the recently released Central Bank data.

He said that “moreover instead of utilising lands available from the recent closure of Caroni to create new opportunities for increasing agricultural production geared to promote our nation’s food security, the PNM is engaged immorally in real estate tactics.” He said, “It appears that the current Minister of Agriculture is not consulted whenever his Cabinet colleagues determine Government’s policy for the agricultural sector.”

Dookeran pointed out that “the nation is blessed with fertile soil, quality human resources and a climate which can support the production of many of the world’s most sought after agricultural products but the PNM does not see it that way.”

He said, “The time has come to realise that agriculture must play a crucial role in the development process and national welfare, and to achieve this however, we must now adopt sound, well thought out agricultural policies with all the stakeholders’ input.”

He stressed, “No country can truly be called independent unless it is able to grow enough food to feed itself.”

Certainly in Trinidad and Tobago it is not so “and as such we need to make a paradigm shift to agriculture to enable us to produce food to feed the population,” according to Dookeran. Dookeran said that it was time “to sow the seeds for success,” as the present Ministry of Agriculture, Lands and Marine Resources, had lost its way in developing any sustainable programme whereby the nation could put a halt to rising food prices.

Dookeran said, “The PNM has failed the nation in food production and we have to fix it.”

He said that Government was blaming everyone else for the inflationary situation in the country “but who is running the Government must take the full blame.” “If the Government is deceiving the country it is time to move them with a united bunch of people, with the same vision, and purpose as charting a course with integrity, honesty and commitment,” Dookeran said.

He commended the speakers who delivered papers during the course of the day. Most of them strongly believed that agricultural lands were being taken away systematically for housing and other industries. According to the Cane Farmers Association president Dave Persad, Government was showing that agriculture was the bastard child of the economy of TT.”