Dear Larry,

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Congratulations on your appointment as this country’s Minister of Finance and the Economy. Yours is not an enviable position. You have taken center stage at a time when our people are eagerly awaiting something different to rekindle hope and dispel fear in the future of the Republic. There is no doubt that in terms of experience and competence, you are well suited to the job. As a banker, you have built a legacy of success which we very genuinely hope will continue in your current portfolio, for the sake of all of us as well as the generations to come.

Today is Budget day in Trinidad and Tobago. In this season of T20 cricket, new Finance Minister Larry Howai  can be likened to a batsman on debut coming in at number 3, after the openers have failed to take advantage of the first eight overs, including the power play. It is never easy for a team to recover after a painfully slow run rate in the early overs. The bowlers are on top, the wicket is increasingly difficult, half of the crowd is distinctly hostile and the other is impatient for their team to put runs on the board. His task has not be made any easier by the inertia of his openers or the numerous off the field missteps ad misdeeds of key team members.

After much thought, it is now my view that this country will not accomplish its development goals, until the philosophy that Government is obligated to take care of my every need, is fully, and permanently, discredited, abandoned and totally destroyed.

Midway through its first fiscal year since taking office on May 24th 2010,  the PPG seems to be still in search of a cogent and coherent strategy to move the economy forward.  It is in times like these that societies look towards centers of higher learning- Universities, Business Schools, and Think tanks- to bring new insights to the debate and help forge a way forward.

Blame it on the nostalgia of my generation at about this time of the year – but as another independence anniversary rolled around this week-end, my mind wandered back to Sparrow’s independence anthem, so filled with hope and boundless faith in his dream of a “model nation”. I asked myself, forty six years ago- is this where we expected to land forty six years later? And as we look around, do we see a flawed independence mission or a mission accomplished?

It is indeed ironic that the same company that propelled the Government of Trinidad and Tobago into owning a share in the petroleum industry in 1969 has again provided a catalyst for a renewed debate on the imperative of increasing national ownership of our oil and gas business. In the last issue we examined with some trepidation the proposal by BP to sell its TSP oil assets.  Many have called for the local private sector to be given an opportunity to acquire these assets. Today we take a look at the evolution of the philosophy and practice of national ownership in the energy sector and distill some lessons in the current context.

In the last issue we traced the evolution of the philosophy and practice of national ownership in the key energy sector. We observed a complete 3600 turnaround in the practice of state ownership over the forty year period since independence.  My own contention is that the retreat from owning a stake in energy sector enterprises was a cardinal error made by Governments past and present. In the process, T&T seems to have stood still in comparison with other hydrocarbon exporters with respect to reaping the potential benefits of national participation in the hydrocarbon sector.

Trinbagonians take great pride in the economic achievements of their country. According to the results of the survey “What Independence Means to You”, published in August issue of the T&T Review- 78 per cent of those surveyed were proud or very proud of our economic achievements. One gets the distinct impression that those who disagreed felt that we should have accomplished more over the first fifty years. But that is water under the bridge. The pertinent question now is would we be able to say the same at the end of the century.  Given life expectancy in Trinidad and Tobago is 68.5 and 74.5 years for males and females respectively, very few who saw the birth of this nation in 1962, will be around for its 100th anniversary.