Economic Options Governments cannot ignore Budget2015 The Emperor's New Tools

Between the euphoria of gaining office and the trepidation at what lies ahead with plummeting oil economy, the new Government of Trinidad and Tobago is not without options to propel the socio-cultural and economic well being of the country forward with some new innovative, imaginative, and progressive-thinking economic alternatives that are only waiting to be grasped. (Click on images this page to view videos)

With its oil-clogged mentality,Trinidad and Tobago, locked into hard-to-break traditionalist hard to break economic modes, and a few stubborn, resistant and defiant archaic conservative bureaucracies, has been comparatively slow on the take towards progressive sustainable development initiatives that its collective natural and cultural heritage sectors offer in synergising existing resources in community development, energy, agriculture, tourism, environment, culture and the arts, education, science and technology, trade and others.
Slow, that is, in comparison to where it can be, with the natural and human resource base it has and what it could achieve with such a range of heritage resources from the technological and industrial of the energy sector to its geophysical and multicultural amalgam.
Add to that the grip of politically-perpetuated divisiveness that has seeped  - some may want to believe, inobtrusively (some of us, otherwise) - into the psyche on display on social media during and post- election-mania, and which continuously surfaces in the ways in which our institutions function; the perpetually-in-crisis-for-the-last-decade integrity commission for instance and which has contributed in no small measure to such economic and socio-cultural retardation.
What suffers in all of this is - apart from denying ourselves access to an enormous economic esoteric resource base that can open up new income generating, employment and avenues for prosperity for every segment of our society - we are also stifling the socio-cultural impacts effective inclusive orientations, outlooks, programmes and actions can have on a society.
As a small island state, with limited land space, bounded by the sea, and a population, numerically small albeit with boundless skills, talented and creativity, we cannot afford to ignore that those elements considered our limitations are also our strengths..
The historical demarcations that continue to challenge the forging, and forging ahead of our society, remain the ongoing challenge of political governance.
It was for the last regime and those that preceded it, and it will remain the challenge of this regime.
Tapping into the intelligence, the knowledge and skills, and the strengths of a relatively educated and incontestably talented population while drawing out the potential of these resources would require ....
(to be continued ...More...next: education options....

Dr Kris Rampersad is an independent multimedia, and multicultural educator, facilitator and consultant...

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