Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar yesterday suggested that Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley “reassure fearful citizens” that there are no plans to devalue the TT dollar.
In a statement ahead of an expected address to the nation by the Prime Minister tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, Persad-Bissessar said a devaluation would only bring further economic hardship to an already encumbered population. She also called on Dr Rowley to tell the nation which previously zero-rated products were now subject to VAT, as well as government’s position on wage negotiations in the public sector.
She said that while she was fully aware of the drop in oil prices and the government’s lack of control over energy prices, she was disappointed that a plan of action to deal with the worsening situation had not been announced.
Persad-Bissessar said she was hopeful that Prime Minister Rowley would present valid and reasoned arguments for his government’s chosen position on fundamental matters, including management of the economy and the country’s finances, as well as the role of the Parliament in such decisions.
The Opposition Leader said a mere promise to consult stakeholders would not suffice if the Government decided to proceed with its apparent plan to make adjustments that were structural and for which citizens were “emotionally and materially unprepared.”
She also expressed concern at the manner in which the Rowley administration has “persisted in dismantling state companies and independent institutions like the Central Bank, and in the process, arbitrarily damaging the careers and professional reputations of many state employees without any care for the future.”
Persad-Bissessar said the circumstances in which former governor of the Central Bank Jwala Rambarran was dismissed raises the question of whether this was done to accommodate the installation of a Central Bank governor “who may possibly be inclined to concur with the government directives, especially in circumstances where such directives may not be in the primary interest of the country.
“The surreptitious firing of Mr Rambarran in the absence of the substantive President leaves great doubt about the sincerity of the Keith Rowley Government. More and more they cannot be trusted as their spoken words and done action are poles apart revealing a hypocrisy that is unparalleled in our political culture,” she said in the statement.
Persad-Bissessar warned, “the consequences of imposing bitter pills upon the population is due to an inherent incompetence of Dr. Keith Rowley’s PNM to govern effectively and will result in social disaster and economic ruin.”
Analysis by Editor in Chief—Orin Gordon
Rambarran and the case for better optics
One unfortunate confluence of events in the Jwala Rambarran affair is the fact that the Acting President, Christine Kangaloo, signed off on the cabinet decision to revoke his appointment as governor. It may well be that the President Anthony Carmona would have done the same. We don’t know.
We also do not know whether she consulted the President before going ahead with such consequential action. Still, the fact that the President of the Senate who is acting as President gave effect to the decision casts things in a political light. This remains the case, perceptually, even if it emerges that the legally accomplished and competent Senate President did everything right by the (law) book.
It’s not the intention here to say whether she did or not. It’s simply to point out that in politics, perception matters a lot. When all the facts are considered and this affair has been analysed fully, there may well be merit in the government’s contention that Mr Rambarran was the architect of his own downfall through his actions.
Our Chief Business Editor Anthony Wilson laid out a thorough and detailed case in yesterday’s T&T Guardian. We will see how it all pans out. But pushing through his removal with the President of the Senate acting as President has unnecessarily created an opening for those who see politics in its dealings with Mr Rambarran. Why now? Couldn’t the removal of the CB governor have been effected two, three weeks later?
A government concerned about appearances might have stayed its hand until President Carmona returned. The Acting President is a former minister in the PNM Government, and although her position in public life is thoroughly merited through her accomplishments, she does owe her elevation partly to the presence in government of the party she formerly served as a minister.
Appearances matter. And this aspect of the manner of Mr Rambarran’s removal shows either a Government not overly concerned about appearances, or unaware of how this looks. Either would be troubling, and would signal messaging challenges ahead for the Rowley administration.
It is not the first time these questions have been asked. Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley Rowley made a private trip to Barbados for the wedding of a friend, accompanied by a man very much in the news, the new chairman of the Housing Development Corporation (HDC), Newman George.
Mr George is engaged in a very noisy public spat with the HDC’s managing director who the board has sent on administrative leave and has started a financial audit into the company.
The political backdrop is whether the new Government is moving too aggressively to rid the executive suites of state companies of executives loyal to “the other side, not ours”, and opposition accusations of packing new boards and C-suites with placemen. Again, let’s be clear. In the final shakeout, the action at HDC and elsewhere may well prove to be justified, and the new appointments and actions managerially sound. And in one sense, the PM is right.
He needs downtime with his men friends in a stressful job, and downtime is the key to avoiding burnout. The job of chief executive of a country is 24/7. President Obama has insisted on the need to regularly get in stress-busting rounds of golf, something for which he has taken awful flak from his Republican opponents. The ubiquity of Internet connectivity means that the work can find you anywhere, and besides, in President Obama’s case, Air Force One is better equipped than most executive offices.
But, again, appearances matter. A properly advised government would have been concerned about how things looked with Mr George travelling with Dr Rowley at this particular time, and tried to put some daylight between them, at least for now.
Final point about Mr Rambarran. Natural justice and openness demands that the allegations against him be laid out clearly and publicly, that they be attributable, and that he be given the time and space to rebut them. In this case, the Government is best served by being clear in law where Mr Rambarran transgressed, by being clear in law that they have taken considered and appropriate steps, and almost as importantly, they need to remove any hint that a decision of this magnitude could have had even the slightest whiff of politics.
The first two are fact-based, the third is more about perception. Appearances are not facts, but they matter too. Dr Rowley’s advisers need to insulate him against bad optics a little better than they have done in these cases. An enjoyable season to all. Editor’s note: This analysis was written on Christmas Day, before Mr Rambarran’s response yesterday.