N Touch

Q&A with CMMB Securities

Q.    From the advice given in your columns, it seems that the sooner we understand how money works, the easier it is to feel financially secure. What are the most important things I can tell my children (aged 9 and 13) about money to give them a good start?


Asha, La Romaine


A: These are the most important things to tell your kids:


1.      Develop a savings habit.
2.      Always draw up a budget periodically which will guide your expenditure.
3.      Always keep an emergency fund for unforeseen expenses.
4.      Keep informed about ways and means to invest your funds.
5.      Make sure that you are getting the best rate of return for your money for a given level of risk.
6.      Start saving early and benefit from the power of compounding.


Once you can engender these principles into your kids from an early age it will serve them in good stead in managing money for the rest of their lives. You are right, the sooner they are aware of these principles the better. It is probably best that all children be required to take at least a rudimentary schooling in the basics of money management. However, in most schools, students who go into the “science stream” are not exposed to this at all. Such courses should probably be mandatory, just as Mathematics and English are.


Q.     Why are stock markets so influenced by social factors like politics, etc? It would seem that the financial markets are based more on perception than facts.


Cedric, D’Abadie


A: You’re right. It does seem as if the stock market is influenced by perceptual distortions. In fact this is so prevalent that it has resulted in a body of knowledge known as behavioural finance which explores how human irrationality can cause movements in stock prices. One good example of this is something referred to as the optimistic bias. This theory says that individuals tend to form optimistic opinions about a share’s price and they find it very difficult to change that. Even if news comes out that tends to conflict with their opinion they tend to underplay it or pay little attention to it. However, if news comes out which is consistent with their opinion they tend to react strongly to it and become even more optimistic.

This irrational optimism is one of the causes of the bull markets during the 1990s where no matter what information came out about the markets it would be interpreted as good news. On the other hand, the fact that the market reacts to political factors may not be irrational as politics does have an inextricable link to the performance of the economy and hence the stock market. For example, one party’s tax policy may be different from another. Depending on which one is in power, the effect on businesses and the stock market can therefore be  markedly different.


Q.  What does “Net Asset Value” mean when referring to shares?


Kay, Debe


A: The term net asset value is used when referring to the value of shares in a mutual fund. It is defined as the market value of the assets of the fund divided by the number of shares issued by that fund. For example, if a mutual fund has assets worth $1,000,000 and they are issuing 100,000 shares in the fund then the net asset value is $10 per share ($1,000,000/100,000). The net asset value of the shares in a mutual fund can go up or down depending on the movement in the market value of the assets in the fund. To illustrate using the example used above, if the value of the assets in the fund goes down to $900,000 due to a down market then the net asset value would be $9 per share. Similarly, if the value of the assets in the fund increases to $1,100,000 then the net asset value would be $11 per share.


Questions can be sent to
PO Box 1830,
Wrightson Road,
Port-of-Spain.
Or e-mail : cmmbsecurities@mycmmb.com

The right mix

Franchises seem to be hot on the menu these days, with more and more foreign brand names setting up shop in Trinidad and Tobago.

President of one of the newest entries, Church’s Chicken, Hala Moddelmog was in town last week to talk about franchising to Amcham members. While the local franchise has been sewn up by the Pizzaboys Group, Moddelmog gave the local business community some tips in a fast growing business. Proof of how fast the market is going, two more food franchises have opened up since Church’s came on the scene in November. And, another has left, with McDonalds making an exit that same month. Franchising is big business worldwide. In the US, one out of every $3 spent on goods and services is spent at a franchise business. Internationally, franchises are worth about US$1.6 trillion in sales.


Moddelmog said the attraction is mostly in being able to use tried and tested systems and brand name. “You don’t have to re-invent the wheel,” she said. While it is a tough market, Moddelmog is confident about her brand. The secret is in giving the franchisee leeway, she explained. “For international brands we offer the ability to be flexible with menu,” she said but noted with franchising there is a fine line. “You can’t get so far off the mark that it’s no longer your brand,” she added. “We’ve got to stay on top and make sure they don’t go off the mark.” The Church’s boss said the company looks for franchisees with a proven track record and while the background does not have to be in food, the company looks for people who understand the retail business. Franchisees, of course, also have to be well capitalised. “Franchising offers people a chance to succeed, manage and direct their own businesses without having to assume all of the associated risk of start up,” she said.


The earliest franchises, she noted, date back to the middle ages when the Catholic Church granted them to tax collectors, who retained a percentage of the money they collected and turned the rest over to the church. Moddelmog said according to the National Franchise Council (NFC), there are more than 2,000 franchisors and over 300,000 franchised businesses operating in the United States. She noted that franchised businesses employ nearly eight million people in the US. Additionally, franchise business is expected to generate $1 trillion in US retail sales this year. “Franchising accounts for more than 40 percent of all retail sales. One out of every three dollars spent by Americans for goods and services is spent in a franchised business.” Globally, the fast food industry has the highest percentage of franchised systems capturing 18 percent of the franchise population. The World Franchise Council estimates the annual sales of franchise business at $1.6 trillion.


Franchising, she said, is about buying into a proven system. She noted that the franchisor provides a brand mark — knowledge and expertise, while the franchisee provides the local knowledge and pool of skilled workers. “But some think that franchisors, and in our case —restaurant franchisors, provide only products and secret recipes. Many are surprised to learn that just scratches the surface.” She explained that franchisors provide an operating system with valuable services such as architectural designs, operations, co-operative purchasing, strategic marketing, training programmes, re-search and development, and business support. “So as you can see, a potential franchisee can launch a business without having to re-invent a brand mark. That is the value of franchising.” She used Church’s Chicken as an example and noted that they “provide extra value” particularly to their international franchisees by allowing a great deal of flexibility on the menu to accommodate local taste. “It is one of our unique selling propositions.” Moddelmog added that while there are pitfalls associated with franchise ownership, they are very few. “However, there are some that people must understand before entering into a franchise venture.” There must be fees and royalties to be paid to the franchisor, but she explained that these fees provide access to an established brand mark and a proven operating system, both of which can provide tremendous value.


Some franchisees, she noted, can be tightly supervised if needed, but added that it is to the franchisee’s benefit that all franchised units abide by a similar set of guidelines so that each guest has a consistent experience. “That is why the franchisee agreement is such an invaluable tool, because it protects the rights of both the franchisor and the franchisee for a multiple year period. All in all, franchising is good business and has yielded excellent result for Church’s.” Church’s Chicken has over 1,500 restaurants with operations in 12 countries around the world. The company has a presence in places such as South Africa, Indonesia, Saipan, Canada, Mexico, Jamaica, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama, Venezuela and Puerto Rico. Moddelmog added that in 1979, Church’s opened its first restaurant in Puerto Rico and now its franchise partner operates over 90 restaurants with greater brand penetration and recognition than any other chicken competitor.


Church’s currently has signed agreements in 39 countries with 16 different. “We were not only impressed with Mario and Norman’s proven track record, but also with their determination to grow the brand, and grow it quickly,” she said. Moddelmog added that apart from meeting the experience and financial requirements, potential franchisees need to be able to fit into the Church’s way of doing business. “We’re looking for a personality fit,” she said. “It’s more fun with somebody who has the right chemistry.” Church’s is happy with Pizzaboys Group which is ahead of schedule with the 20 restaurant agreement. The group has opened six restaurants in the past three months. “Most of our franchisees don’t move that fast,” Moddelmog said.

Let the picture speak

WHAT more horrendous carnage must sully our highways than Monday’s five-death smash-up for the authorities to take effective action against the reckless speed-demons on our roads? This newspaper has argued, ad nauseam, that appealing to the “good sense” of drivers to be careful and considerate on the road is like throwing water on a duck’s back. Indiscipline, the obsession with speed, the total disregard for other road users have become so habitual and perverse among so many of the country’s motorists that only the most relentless and forceful campaign against these dangerous law-breakers will now suffice.

It is time to deal in the harshest possible way with drivers who, by their wanton recklessness, endanger not only their own safety but also the lives of their passengers and other users of the road. The problem is, we have called for such vigorous action before. Our roads and highways have become perilous places for the majority as a result of the uncaring insanity of the minority who carry on because the effort at enforcing our traffic laws has always been a sporadic, piecemeal and largely ineffective affair. For some inexplicable reason, those responsible have never risen to the challenge of the road hogs, launching a sustained nation-wide campaign that sends a no-nonsense message.

Yet, as the mutilation mounted, we have been regaled by all kinds of earnest intentions. We have had promises of increased road patrols and action to deal with speeding and irresponsible drivers, greater vigilance, surveillance, deterrence and prosecution. But law-abiding drivers are yet to see that level of implementation and enforcement on our roads. Indeed, a patrol car on our highways is still something rarely seen. Trinidad and Tobago may well have as high a ratio of automobiles per capita as any of the developed countries but, at the same time, we have one of the worst systems or agencies for maintaining and enforcing law and order on the roads.

So the slaughter continues, unabated. On Monday five persons, including three Venezuelan students, were crushed to death when a six-wheel dump truck catapulted over the median dividing the Churchill Roosevelt Highway at the Mausica intersection and overturned on two cars, turning them into mangled wreckage. We are told that the truck ran into difficulties when it attempted to stop behind a car which had pulled up when the lights turned red. In attempting to veer off, the truck went hurtling over the median. The circumstances of this crash and the horrible wreckage of the vehicles involved tells us clearly that, again, the problem was speed.

It has not been our policy to publish the dead bodies of accident victims lying on the road, but in this case we did it deliberately on our front page in order to shock the country and the authorities into realizing the level of recklessness on our roads, particularly the insane obsession with speed, and the agonising calamity it often causes. For this reason, we make no apologies for carrying the grisly picture which, we expect, should be worth more than a million words in telling the story of neglect and expressing the urgency for powerful and relentless action to restore law and order on our roads and highways. As we have said before, in no other area of our national life does the indiscipline of our society manifest itself more habitually and disastrously. The reason for that is the perception among drivers that they can break the law and get away with it and, on the other hand, an apparent feeling by the authorities that traffic offences are minor breaches which do not call for strong enforcement. Will Monday’s mutilation make a difference, change anything?

THE PRESIDENT CALLS ON ‘BEETHAM’S ALL IN ONE’


“The child is father of the man”: William Wordsworth: My Heart Leaps Up.


Beetham Gardens’ All In One Child Development Centre, a blend of pre-school and primary, played proud host for about an hour on Monday to the country’s new President, His Excellency Professor G Maxwell Richards, and the First Lady, Dr Jean Richards.

But when President Richards went a-calling this week he was honouring not simply a school, but a community and a vision for that community. Ask almost anyone about Beetham Gardens, and the negatives, some of them not entirely undeserved, are trotted out. Few outside of the lower income community, however, have stopped to reason that Beetham Gardens, hemmed in as it is by history, immigration regulations, and the Priority Bus Route and the Beetham Highway, is but a child of the embittered past.

Its predecessor, Shanty Town, as well as the nearby equally lower income Sea Lots, was for long a jumping off point for individuals from the smaller islands, who having come here by schooner, sloop and fishing boat, and wishing to take up residence without the humbug of the immigration process, would call home. Of critical importance was that, as illegal immigrants, any attempt to register their children in state and/or state assisted schools meant that the parents could have been arrested and deported. Their children’s introduction to formal education would be delayed, coming in their teen years, when they would seek entry to classes under the country’s Adult Education Programme.

Many, however, haunted by the fear of deportation, would not seek out the Adult Education classes and the chances, severely limited, at upward mobility. And at that stage, so terribly late, what upward mobility? A large number would spend their wretched lives without being able to read and write, without knowing what it was to enjoy Samuel Selvon, Vidia Naipaul, Derek Walcott, C L R James, Michael Anthony, Earl Lovelace, or the poems of Eric Roach, Claude MacKay and Martin Carter. Very few, save they had developed the ability of recall, could even access jobs as messengers, and all too often not for long.

Just under 15 years ago, a young man, Wayne Patrick Jordan, decided that something had to be done to rescue the children of these luckless immigrants, and of others who were citizens as of right. It was a difficult task, but undaunted he set up the All In One Child Development Centre in an abandoned Government building. The conditions were primitive, but the challenge to help the many achieve a better and a brighter day dominated. Gradually, his Centre would become part of the Servol aim of establishing pre-school centres throughout the land. The Community Service Committee of the Rotary Club of Central Port-of-Spain joined in assisting All On One, which by then embraced a Primary section. Rotarians such as Raymond Tim Kee, a Past President of the Rotary Club, and Peter Aleong, then Chairman of the Club’s Community Service Committee, both of them Paul Harris Fellows as well as successful businessmen, took on the mantle of leadership by example.

They, along with Terry O’Neil Lewis, a member of the Tax Appeal Board; Errol Pilgrim, an education consultant and myself, organised workshops on effective parenting among others. The rationale was that the parents had to be involved. An involved parent tends to be a motivated parent, and we felt that, along with the direct tackling of the pre-schoolers and the primary pupils, the motivating of the parents would assist in raising the self esteem of, and setting positive goals for the youngsters.

The parents of a not inconsiderable percentage of the children in the Primary section had encountered difficulty in placing their offspring into state and state assisted primary schools. There is no need to go into the reasons, although this time around they had nothing to do with immigration status. What was important was the challenge the reasons presented. Mr Jordan, or Teacher Wayne, or Uncle Wayne, as he is known, has coached them with relative success. He has done this for several years, without benefit of salary, supporting himself and his family through selling produce on weekends at the Central Market. He has been assisted by a devoted team of three — Keisha Hackett, Charmaine Anderson and Natasha Marshall, all of them Servol trained — who teach the pre-school classes. In turn, there are two assistant teachers — Pamela Williams and Christine Daniel — undergoing training with Servol.

Last year, a Board was established, with Peter Aleong as Chairman, and including all of the earlier mentioned Rotarians with the exception of Tim Kee. Other members include equally concerned citizens, Leslie Scotland, a Rotarian; Guy Boldon, Jordan, as an ex officio member; Audrey Marchand and Wyncliff Roberts. Since then, the Board has arranged for the Centre to be painted; corporate sponsors have assisted: Angostura with a refrigerator and a cheque toward the tiling of the Centre’s floor; SmithKline Beecham (Caribbean) Limited with the sheening of the floor, and the presentation of four IBM computers, through the intervention of Gregory Sloane-Seale of the YMCA; and Penta Paints Caribbean Limited. But much remains to be done. The All in One Child Development Centre needs furniture, text books, funds to add yet another floor; a larger computer room, teaching aids and the list is formidable.

Monday’s visit of President Richards was the first by a Head of State to All In One. Several of the parents, all members of the Centre’s active Parent-Teacher Association turned up and were pleased at being introduced to him. To them the President’s visit, and that of Her Excellency meant an undefined recognition not only of the Centre itself and the Centre’s work, but of their hopes for a new and more supportive and sympathetic view of both All In One and the larger Beetham Gardens community. A parent, encouraged, as were the other parents, with the visit of the President and the First Lady said with moist eyes that their visit was an acknowledgment that the Centre’s Pre-School and Primary component was a contribution to the development of better (future) adults. “The children at All In One, with the help at home of their parents, will make for achievers. The President and Mrs Richards’ coming to All In One, and by extension the Beetham community, will urge the children and their parents on.”

A sight must soothe a restless soul

THE EDITOR: Valsayn Park has now become the victim of the unscrupulous “landscaping” done by the CEPEP programme in the name of environmental enhancement.

The effort made at Aruac Road, South Valsayn is poorly conceived and executed. We are reminded of Saddam’s mas grave and in our own environment the replica of the Garden of Rent seen in the crematorium compound. To compliment its function, there may be the likelihood of the construction of a columbarium for safe keeping of the urns and sacred ash. The CEPEP programme is commendable if only it is undertaken and supervised by landscape personnel trained to undertake this work of enhancing the environment. It is a specialist responsibility and should not be compromised for anything else that would not add to the enhancement of the surrounding.

There are many challenges to be overcome in the process of landscaping which the specialist would have us advised. Forms, features and forces relating to the site would have regards to the concept. The judicious use of material-plants, shrubs, rocks and water are perquisite necessary consideration and how they relate to each and all in achieving the final result.  These elements are analysed by the specialists who are already sensitive to their use in giving shape to the planned development.

The zoning of towns, communities, and the projected alignment of highways, the sitting of industries and the orientation of simple structure in creating area of interest are all part of the undertaking that are necessary in giving meaning to an effort which we can relate to and be proud of in the final accomplishment. Landscaping is necessary and even desirable in an island where more than sea and sand are there to give relief to our restless soul and to our many foreign visitors pleasurable pastime.

Because of this and much more, landscaping much be undertaken seriously as it can have an abiding effect in our environment and life.  What we observe in the name of landscaping should be revisited and revised. It is an insult to our sense of value and indeed our taste and in a university environment where there is a greater need for relaxation, reflection and relief of our future leaders, it must not be tolerated. Better result can be achieved by the use of specialist assisted by this same work force.

There is enough evidence around us to have us convinced that it will succeed. Residents of Evans Street, St Augustine in the vicinity of Hi-Lo Shopping Complex are apprehensive that the development of a landscaping project now in hand may be a follow-up of those already put in place throughout the country which are now of national concern.  We wish that the Authority would understand our concern and put in place policies that would reflect a change in concept and indeed an environment we can proudly relate to.

W H BENJAMIN
Reg Chartered Architect
Valsayn

Farewell to ‘name and shame’

THE EDITOR: Within recent times we note with alarming concern an escalating trend by lenders to publish the names of their debtors in the daily newspapers almost with personal vexation, under the social guise of “Whereabouts of” and “Request to Contact”, while employees willfully repeat their “Disclaimer” announcing a previous employee is no longer in their employ, or a bank would list the number plate of a repossessed vehicle they now wish to sell. Prior to this, we have just recovered from a 19-year campaign of “For Sale by Mortgage” where banks and insurance companies would callously list the defaulted homeowners name in bold caps as if selling them and not their property. Repeated letters and lobbying from Public Interest Research Group was instrumental in reversing the latter.

The worst of the personal victimisation blitz was the recent unprecedented whole page advertisement in which a government agency, more so one charged with the mandate of making micro loans to small if not neophyte entrepreneurs, placed photographs of its debtors in the press headlined “Request to Contact”, which is consistent with seeking wanted criminals. At a meeting with regulatory authorities in which we raised this unsavoury practice, a perplexed attendee innocently asked “In what country that happened?” Everyone in Trinidad and Tobago knows the meaning of these advertisements, including bewildered visitors, and PIRG reiterates that it is in no way whatsoever advocating or condoning anyone not honouring this financial obligations which can only be beneficial to all concerned.

However, we find these advertisements to be counter productive, and undesirable of the civil society we all wish to craft. People of conscience cannot be reticent or facetious while influential lenders perpetuate the art of naming and shaming debtors whom they previously attracted and qualified for loans driven by the “inherent risk for profits” motive, yet now wish to spit out and publicly humiliate, and warn the public against, simply because the borrower can no longer contribute to their balance sheet. Local banks are fully conscious that these destructive collection tactics are neither practised nor tolerated in civilised societies. When you think that consumers paid interest and nuisance charges over a period of years as great customers of these institutions, it’s hard to fathom they have suddenly turned on their clients in such a manner, and become their enemies.

Whatever mask these advertisers choose to wear, it is indeed lucid that the citizens targeted in these advertisements are people of the east/west corridor, the true consumer and nucleus of the economic engine. What is needed quite divergent from this destructive paradigm is a programme of financial planning and budgeting; guidance to spending priority versus a one size fit all marketing approach, and adherence to social responsibility and its overall benefits. These aloof big boys cannot comprehend that by sincerely focusing on a consumer enables them to better understand a product, and builds loyalty, which is far more advantageous than customer satisfaction. Further, it is indeed immature for any lender earning massive profits through taking inherent risks not to expect a minute portion of such loans to be uncollectible, and are either insured or calculated in the overall cost of doing business. If however, they wish to be defensive and portray this to be a majority of bad loans, then, something ought to be definitely wrong with their qualifying parameters and they should instead advertise their folly. Many young people leave school untrained in the dictates of prudent financial management only to have their lives destroyed through feelings of inferiority and incompetence by retaliatory public embarrassment perpetuated on them by lenders. Many a homeowner lost their job, and inevitably their home, through many a genuine reason and should not have to pay such a high price via punitive publicity.

PIRG have cases of responsibility but delinquent borrowers actually contacting their credit card companies to make future payment arrangements only to have their names appear in the press the following week. To add callous insult in a country notoriously lacking in consumer rights and protection but abundant in untrained and unregulated hustlers calling themselves collection agencies, one bank uses a particular agency that instructed the bank to abdicate its responsibility by refusing payments from its debtors insisting that they be referred to this collection agency who then bilks the debtor all manner of usury and abusive “collection fees”, interest and other charges after a barrage of intimidating scare tactics. Many such agencies are impervious to the fact that their very existence depends on consumers not paying their bills yet gallantly trample on the rights of the poor to fatten their pockets, aided and abetted by prosperous financial giants overly concerned about improving their balance sheets. We wish therefore to admonish these advertisers and their cohorts to be wary of being selfish and parochial to the extent that they are uncalculating of the dangers of going too far, and seek instead to find solutions that are both legal and moral. This method would certainly guarantee a solid social equilibrium for players and consumers alike, both dependants on the other for survival.


TREVOR HOSTEN
Chairman
Public Interest Research Group (PIRG)

Corruption battle not over

THE EDITOR: What is a continuing puzzle is that, notwithstanding a public official being charged with not declaring substantial assets in a foreign bank account, nevertheless he has not been ordered, apparently, to explain the source of those funds taking that they could not be savings from his known legitimate income.

Extraordinary? I think so! In another regional country recently, in general conversation, the topic of sudden conspicuous consumption came up and it was made very clear that anyone suddenly driving an expensive vehicle or moving into an expensive house would certainly be investigated as to why this appearance of unexplained “good fortune.” The PM blithely talks of becoming a “developed nation by 2020” but he has a long, long row to hoe, starting with the very top echelons. Proper social and economical development and corruption are contradictory, self-negating terms. We cannot have both, so must soon decide unequivocally which one we want with the consequent absence of the other.

I hope none is under the illusion that, for all its blatancy then, corruption ended with the collapse of the UNC government! Those that pose they are for transparency and declare that they exist to combat corruption are conspicuously silent of late but I can assure them that public funds are still illicitly enriching persons in official and unofficial positions of power and influence. The battle isn’t over til it’s over!


GEOFF HUDSON
Port-of-Spain

Crime and punishment

THE EDITOR: When has increasing the severity of the punishment for any crime in our society resulted in a lasting reduction of its incidence? Yet, that is precisely the proposal Ms Joan Moore suggests for abortion, safe and unsafe alike (Newsday, April 16). The fact that this law has never been and can never be effectively enforced has escaped her. The fact that globally, every effort at enforcement has resulted not in fewer abortions but in great harm to women’s lives, is something she ignores.

Unwanted pregnancies are a reality of reproductive life. For whatever reason, couples sometimes decide to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. As couples commit to smaller families, this practice will persist. Only a transition to more reliable contraceptives can help reduce the incidence of abortion. And only provision for legal, medical abortion will eliminate the horror of unsafe abortions that stalks us today. More severe punishment is not the answer to the problem of abortion, safe or unsafe.


GLORIA TAITT
San Fernando

Sin and Crime

THE EDITOR: Sin is the focus of religious bodies while crime is the responsibility of the state. Where we have a theocratic state, the laws of religion are the laws of the citizens. But where there is separation of religion and state, as in our case, sin and crime may be different.

For example, adultery used to be both a sin and a crime. While it remains a sin, it is no longer a crime. Similarly, our laws used to discriminate against children born out of wedlock (as the result of the sin of adultery), but they no longer do that. Both sins and laws change over time. Some of our political leaders seem to miss this basic distinction between sin and crime and between the role religious bodies and the domain of the state.

For example, in spite of the overwhelming evidence of the harmful public health consequences of our restrictive abortion law, our Minister of Health has declared that he will not enter any discussion of its revision because it is “too controversial.” He made special mention of the strong position of the Roman Catholic Church. In determining public policy, no minister of the state should be bound by his or her personal religions values or driven by his or her religious community. Decisions should be predicated on what is in the best interest of the state and should be developed through a process that is transparent, consultative and evidence-based.


MAUREEN T SMITH
Tobago

God help this country!

THE EDITOR: I wish to correct a bit of misinformation concerning the difference in salary that exists between doctors who work in Trinidad vs those who work in Tobago. Can I say that, in view of the seriousness of our health situation, it does no one any good to advance opinions that are emotional, illogical or that have no basis in truth or factual information.

First, the differences in salaries: A House Officer (HO) is a Junior Doctor. One does 18 months of internship before being so designated. For the year 2001, a consultant, like myself, employed with the MOH in Trinidad, (with 25 years experience), earned $20,680.00/month, while a HO in Tobago earned $20,500.00 during the same period. A Consultant in Tobago earned $28,555.00 (per month). The employer is the same. I wonder if Mr James can rationalise this disparity? Does the fact that one works in Tobago justify a difference of $8,000.00 per month, or the fact that 18 months of hands-on experience is rewarded the same as 25 years experience and specialist designation?

Secondly, the nature of the work: The Scarborough County Hospital serves a catchment population of 47,527. The SWRHA’s catchment population is 346,755, that of the NWRHA is 198,661, the Central RHA is 475,670 and the Eastern RHA: 100,959. (Annex 3: NHS Plan) The existing numbers of Health offices for these areas respectively are: 18 (Tobago), 17 (NWRHA), 30 (CRHA), 25 (SWRHA), and 16 (ERHA). The spectrum of illness, the degree of disease severity, and in general the burden of disease must be different for both Tobago and Trinidad. The ethnic composition of both catchment populations is quite different. This too would impact on the health needs of these two populations. Confining myself to the San Fernando General Hospital (SFGH). That Hospital admitted an annual average of 46,650 patients to all departments (1987-1990).

For the Scarborough Hos-pital this figure was 5,485, or about 11 percent of our admissions. Over the same period, the average turnover rate for Tobago (as an index of that Hospital’s ‘productivity’), was 56 percent as compared to turnover rates for Port-of-Spain GH: 71.5 percent; San Fernando: 100.6 percent; and Point Fortin Area Hospital: 73,9 percent. (Min of Health Ann Rep: 1987-1990). Doctors at the POSGH attended to 192,343 outpatients. At SFGH we saw 137,517. In Tobago at your Hospital, your Doctors saw 8,504 — or about five percent (average) of our workload. With 18 health centres in Tobago, each would serve a notional catchment population of just 2640 persons compared to an average of between 5000 to 10000 people in Trinidad.

Mr James admits that doctors working in Tobago are today better paid, but adds that “this was not always so.” I think it is fair to say that before this present anomaly, at no time were our salaries different, save perhaps in respect of small allowances. He further states that the health sector in Tobago “was always in intolerable crisis” and that “there is only one Hospital.” He laments the shortage of ‘specialists’ in Tobago. He needs to e reminded that the Tobago population is only 47,527. I should add that using hospital mortality as a surrogate market for clinical outcomes, this has averaged around 5.5 for Tobago compared with 6.5 for hospitals in Trinidad. One therefore could hardly say that the Tobago Hospital has a “crisis” of any sort.

I hope I have got across the point that in Tobago, that 96 bed hospital sees between 5-11 percent of the patients we see at our major hospitals. The range of clinical problems is far narrower because of the small catchment and relative ethnic homogeneity. There are not at present, nor is there any plan to include ‘tertiary’ services at Tobago. Hence, Mr James’ main concern will still not be addressed after completion of the “new” facility. Patients in need of tertiary care wills till have to be flown to Trinidad! Of necessity, then, there is no need for the range of specialists to equate with what exists at Trinidad. It would be a waste of manpower.

Finally, can I recount a few “Administrative and Organisational Problems” listed in a 1981 appraisal of this country’s Health Manpower needs Report of The Committee To Study Health manpower Needs of the Present and Projected Health Services of Trinidad and Tobago” — Dr Elizabeth Quamina PMO1)]. These problems were short listed and documented by Dr Elizabeth Quamina, Principal Medical Officer (Institu-tions) under the PNM Administration of 1981! These existed then, and still do, to an even greater extent today (23 years later!).
* “Unattractive living and working conditions:
* Poor work organisation and sub-optimal utilisation of Health Personnel;
* Poor career prospects and promotion based on seniority;
* Deterioration of skills and knowledge because of lack of facilities for personal initiative, research, and continuing medical education;
* Lack of coordination between training, administrators and personnel;
* Shortage of qualified staff in personnel administration;
* Absence of procedural manuals vis-?-vis the function, services offered and categorisation of job for health personnel;
* Lack of mechanisms of evaluation of service;
* Inadequate coordination between community health services and institutional care.”

The above is not from me nor is it from MPATT of some politician. It is from the pen, and the heart of one of this country’s best PMOIs, Dr E Quamina (deceased). Hence, when we as a group repeat this list of short-comings which was compiled by one of their own, are we being “political?” The Minister claims that he has had no problems in the past with Indian and African doctors. Where are they today? They have all left in frustration and exasperation. Who has remained? Who will continue to stay and serve in spite of unredressed difficulties and an oppressive Minister? Our contract negotiations seek only to address those and other problems, identified by one of their own trusted members, yet Mr Imbert continues to politicise the problem, rant and rave and would willingly allow the status quo to prevail. You are right, this is really a “fight between the rich and poor!” All I can say is God help this country!


DR STEVE SMITH