Opinion
- Editorial- Commentary
Raffique
Shah
:
IMF
'ranking' blinds us to poverty amidst plenty
NOBODY should be surprised that international
agencies like the World Bank and the IMF have rated
Trinidad and Tobago among the leading countries
with respect to economic development. It would
have taken a complete fool in government, or a
big-time bandit so placed, to have done otherwise
given the high levels of revenue we have enjoyed
over the past five years or so. So our GDP and
GNP will have grown in tandem with the steep increases
in prices of oil, gas and downstream energy products
that account for most of our revenue. These and
other indicators used by such agencies will also
show a major reduction in poverty levels and almost
zero unemployment.
But Prime Minister Patrick Manning and his Government
should take little comfort in the rankings these
agencies have assigned us given their chequered
records. It was no accident that a few weeks ago
Venezuela's Hugo Chavez literally kicked the IMF
out of his country. The IMF's track record, the
draconian measures it imposed on countries across
the world that reduced them from ketch-arse to
failed states, remains uppermost in the minds of
many, especially its victims in Latin America and
Africa.
The IMF and World Bank can hardly point to a single
success story among the countries in which they
intervened. Indeed, for many years, even as this
country prospered when compared with its Caribbean
neighbours, these very agencies rated Barbados,
St Lucia, Antigua, St Kitts and others to whom
we generously gave concessions or granted loans
as being far better off than Trinidad and Tobago.
If this were true, then we ought to have seen
migration from mismanaged and poverty-stricken
Trinidad and Tobago to Eastern Caribbean countries.
While our businessmen and professionals have always
roamed freely through the region, in general migration
has been the other way round.
I have long argued that the institutionalised yardsticks
for measuring the state of the economies of countries,
and more important, the social distribution of
their wealth, are flawed.
The per capita GDP, for example, a standard benchmark
for these agencies, does not tell us how many poor
people there are in any country. To use a simple
example, a country that has, say, 100 billionaires
and 100,000 poor people, will register high on
the GDP scale. In contrast, Cuba, in which there
are few if any wealthy people, but where everyone
gets a fair share of the country's limited food
resources, is ranked among the poorest in the world.
In the year 2000, every Cuban consumed daily levels
of food amounting around 2,600 calories: the FAO
standard is 2,400 calories. How many countries
that are better-rated can boast of that, of superior
health and education programmes?
But
I digress. What do the new "rankings" we
received, on the strength of which the PNM is likely
to wage its general elections' campaign, mean to
the majority of citizens of the country? As far
as the opposition parties are concerned, the IMF "cooked
the books". In fact, they see nothing good
coming from the PNM Government.
To hear them tell the political story of the past
six years, you'd think that the country was moving
backward. Only they, who stand accused of gross
corruption (and don't tell me the American courts
in which those Piarco accused plea-bargained are
controlled by the PNM), can do better. Yeah, right!
Does Panday really believe the people of this country
are prepared to trust him again with the nation's
bulging coffers?
I am not arguing that there is no corruption emanating
from within the PNM government or its cronies in
public office. I am only saying it would have been
100 times worse with people like Panday holding
the nation's purse strings, or worse, dutifully
handing them to his wife in accordance with religious
tradition. Still, the sinners in opposition in
no way absolve the PNM in Government from taking
care of its most vulnerable-the aged, the unemployable,
the children. And whatever the IMF may say to the
contrary, this country has too many people living
below the ever-rising poverty line for a nation
that is enjoying the kind of wealth we do today.
The working poor, those who can barely eke out
an existence on sub-standard salaries, can turn
into our worst nightmares. They see their employers
making untold profits and paying themselves six-digit "packages'
while those who labour suffer in near squalour.
Isn't it tempting for them to be conduits to
crime, people-in-the-know who can set up their
bosses to be robbed or kidnapped or even killed?
Aren't their children, seeing the unjust, uneven
distribution of wealth, be drawn towards the
quick-buck-fixes offered by criminals rather
than work hard like their parents and get nowhere?
Inequality in any society breeds hatred. In a
wealthy country like ours in which conspicuous
consumption-luxury mansions, limousines, exclusive
clubs-stands like a wall between rich and poor,
it can trigger social upheaval. Manning will do
well to ignore the IM -flattery and break down
the walls of Jericho before the angry masses do
it themselves.
Raffique
Shah is
a columnist in the Trinidad Express.
Petroleumworld not necessarily share these views.
Editor's
Note: This article was first publish in Trinidad
Express, May 20th 2007. Petroleumworld reprint
this article in the interest
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