Dating back to 1956, the People’s National Movement (PNM) has had difficulty delivering scores of its manifesto promises to the population in a reasonable time frame. As a result, there has been a repetition of PNM promises in its manifestos over the years.
Having been the most dominant party in the political landscape, it’s obvious the PNM would have made the most promises. But how effective has the 59-year-old party been in its delivery?
One of the deficiencies of the PNM while it was in government was its inability to implement some of its key policies and plans.
Going back 24 years ago, the PNM promised to set up a Policyholder Protection Fund and to promote T&T as an eco-tourism centre. It also promised the enactment of legislation to permit construction of buildings and land development, and to implement a programme of distribution of state lands. Those promises are yet to materialise.
Regarding rural development, the PNM promised to “continue the development of infrastructure in rural communities by improving, inter alia: feeder roads, electricity and water supply, telecommunications systems, rural housing, drainage, and irrigation systems.”
It also promised to stimulate industrial and agricultural activities in underdeveloped areas such as the Nariva Swamp and the Oropouche Lagoon. A promise that’s over 40 years old was the establishment of a Children’s Authority.
But come September 7, political analyst Maukesh Basdeo said, manifestos will not sway voters since the base support of each political party has already made up its mind.
“Manifestos generally will have an impact but not an overall impact that will shape views and opinions. There is a segment of the population that is called the undecided who will look closely at these manifestos and gauge from them if they (manifestos) can meet their needs.”
Basdeo said there was also a segment of the population that will read the manifestos and compare them.
The PNM’s delivery of promises or lack thereof had to do with throughput. Throughput, in business, is the rate at which an organisation reaches a given goal. It’s generally viewed as the rate a business is able to produce a product or service for a given unit of time.
Basdeo said in certain cases, policies would be announced but the completion of the projects was a problem.
In an interview with the Sunday Guardian, Basdeo noted the more recent incomplete projects such as the Scarborough Hospital, the Tarouba Stadium and the National Oncology Centre. He said, “These were good ideas and policies, but I think one of the deficiencies was throughput, where the projects were not delivered within the time frame.”
He said projects were also announced within a specific budget but then another problem was the inflation of some projects by 30 or sometimes 40 per cent. But Basdeo said one contributing factor which may have affected the PNM’s delivery of projects, more so while it held office from 2007 to 2010, was the decline of oil and gas prices.
In 2008, oil prices fell to a three-year low of US$49.62 per barrel. Former prime minister Patrick Manning had issued the warning to citizens to tighten their belts.
Basdeo said, “That saw the government going back to the Parliament and slashing budgets and expenditure, so that would account for some of the decrease in expenditure because a lot of projects remained outstanding.”
He said when the People’s Partnership assumed office and presented its first budget in 2010, which was close to $49 billion, it was much higher because of the payment to contractors.
In 2011, the PP Government agreed to guarantee a $230 million loan from First Citizens to pay outstanding debts to contractors by the Urban Development Company of T&T. The state-owned company paid close to $1 billion to local contractors.
Manifesto promises
over the years
The PP and the PNM presented their manifestos to the electorate almost two weeks apart from each other, ahead of what has become a hotly-contested general election set for September 7.
Boasting since the start of 2015 that it had delivered 90 per cent of its 2010 election promises, the PP, in many areas have still failed to implement or initiate some of its policies.
The Sunday Business Guardian on August 2, published an analysis of the PP’s delivery of promises over the last five years, having an expenditure allocation of approximately $288 billion.
On August 20, the PNM’s “Let’s Do This Together,” manifesto was officially launched at the Hyatt Regency in Port-of-Spain.
It stated that over the last 59 years, the PNM was the only party that had “the resilience and commitment to stay the course, in and out of government, to accept the will of the people, and
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on each occasion that we have been tested, put our shoulders to the wheel and emerge stronger and better equipped to serve our people.”
In its 2010 “Caring About You Today and Tomorrow” manifesto, the PNM said it was committed to providing the nation with a world class infrastructure, and that the then Ministry of Works and Transport had a pivotal role to play in achieving this.
In a statement on the PNM’s website, former PNM minister Colm Imbert claimed that over the 2007-2010 period the PNM government did all of the required planning, engineering and documentation for a comprehensive network of highways, known as the National Network of Highways Programme, which was to be done in phases.
The projects included the San Fernando to Point Fortin Highway and the San Fernando to Mayaro Highway, both of which were sent out for tenders prior to the 2010 general election for construction to begin in 2010.
The PP has since carried out phases of this project.
Basdeo: PP redirected
focus to rural areas
Basdeo said the PP has focused a lot on rural development and they have basically accredited that to the failure by past governments in the past decades.
“They redirected a lot of their resources to primary infrastructure like roads, drainage, electricity and water, and so forth.
“Those were the basic commodities that you the urban communities had that rural communities did not enjoy.”
He said for “way too much of its period,” the PNM focused on urban development as seen with many of the high rise buildings in Port-of-Spain.
“That’s synonymous with a more urban, capital-incentive development.”
The PP has spent close to $288 billion in its five-year term, while the PNM’s budgetary expenditure allocation from 2001-2009 was about $250 billion
Basdeo said while he did not properly review the PNM’s manifesto, he found there were some good ideas but some “were somewhat vague.”
The PP manifesto, he said, was more of a continuation of its macro-economic policies.
Ferdie Ferriera
The oldest founding member of the PNM, 83-year-old Ferdie Ferriera, spoke at length of the party’s manifestos since 1956.
The man who was political adviser to T&T’s former prime minister, Dr Eric Williams, said the PNM built 26 miles of “highway” between 1961 and 1981 from Chaguanas to Golconda.
He admitted the Rio Claro Hospital was never initiated, nor the Children’s Authority or land records in Tobago.
“No government, even the NAR with Robinson (ANR), as a Tobagonian and prime minister was able to achieve that. That problem still exists,” he said.
Regarding road works in the 1980s, he said the PNM “successfully” completed the construction of the extension of the Diego Martin Highway from Sierra Leone Road to Diamond Vale. In 2012, the PP’s Cabinet decided to extend the Diego Martin Highway from Wendy Fitzwilliam Boulevard to the Diego Martin Main Road. It also agreed to construct a vehicular overpass in the vicinity of Powder Magazine in Cocorite. In 2014, the government declared open the expansion of that highway.
Ferriera added that the Audrey Jeffers Highway and the St James flyover was major construction that opened up the West.
He admitted that the PNM may have faltered along the way but it was important to give credit where it was due. He said while all of the promises have not been achieved, one has to take into consideration—the initiation of Unit Trust, national insurance, First Citizens Bank, the purchase of Petrotrin, which includes Texaco, BP Fyzabad, BP Palo Seco and Shell...the purchase of Caroni (1975) Ltd, recovering two of the most valuable pieces of real estate in Trinidad...13,000 acres of land in Chaguaramas and 77,000 acres purchased from Tate & Lyle.
He said these decisions and actions have laid the foundation for where the country is right now.
Ferriera said in 1960, the government purchased what is now called “TSTT” for $12 million and subsequently bought Textel.
“Look at what they have turned out to be today,” he said.
Saying he has been through it all, Ferriera said in 1956 there were only two secondary schools—Queen’s Royal College and St George’s College.
“Between 1971 and 1991, the PNM built 34 secondary schools south of the Caroni River. All those schools like Couva Secondary, Williamsville, Gasparillo, Cedros and so on, they built that.
“As a matter of fact, the school that Prime Minister was speaking at the other night in Gasparillo was built by the PNM.”
Ferriera said, “They have all made mistakes, no one is perfect.”
No response from Imbert
2015 PNM manifesto architect and long-standing member of the party, Colm Imbert was contacted on August 21 to share his views on PNM manifesto promises over the years.
When contacted via telephone, Imbert said, “I had absolutely no idea this is what you wanted me to talk about (PNM manifestos).”
He said, “This story makes no sense, no sense at all. Why would anyone want to go back to 1956?
“We are in 2015. I can talk to you about what I said yesterday (August 22 at the manifesto launch).”
However, he agreed to answer questions via email, saying he did not speak “off the cuff or spontaneously about these matters” and needed time to digest the questions.
No response was forthcoming that day but on August 22, Imbert contacted the Sunday Guardian and said he did not receive the email since it may have been “inactive” and provided another address. He said he could only answer the questions by August 24 since he was heading to a walkabout.
Told on August 23 via email that he did not answer the ten questions, he said, “I thought I did.”
His last response was, “I would check again.”