A FAILURE OF IMAGINATION

That we are in deep, deep "doo-doo" is unquestionable. The problem is that even before this Coronavirus business knocked everybody sideways we were in deep trouble with falling energy prices, rising unemployment and plant closures (not to mention the closing down of the Pointe-a-Pierre refinery). That is why an active imagination is so important - not to assume the worst but to prepare for all eventualities.

In talking with energy experts over the last few years they all sang from the same song book that oil and gas prices would go down ... and that the drop would be fairly radical. But apart from some 'lyrics' about deals with Venezuela and the Dragon Gas Fields the truth is that the Rowley led regime in the last five years appears to have done nothing. Oh! The Prime Minister did go to Houston and came back boasting that he had made a great deal on gas prices only to have big downstream users of natural gas at Point Lisas close their doors because they couldn't afford the new prices. The end result has been that the National Gas Company (NGC), once the crown jewel in the State's business enterprises, is now in dire financial straits.

And now? Now we are faced with version 2 of the Rowley regime which looks very much like version1 with the only change in the line up of top ministers being the removal and replacement of the hapless and hopeless Dennis Moses, the former Foreign Affairs Minister. But wasn't it Albert Einstein who once famously defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result?

No. Frankly, I don't expect any new or innovative thinking to fall from the lips of Finance Minister Colm Imbert on Monday next. He has shown himself to be devoid of any imagination whatsoever and all the evidence points inexorably to a complete failure of imagination on his part. If I am wrong then tell me: what will your bench marks be for the next twelve months that will show that at least we are on the right road? But if I am right, then I predict that things will simply get worse. Haiti has already shown that there is no 'bottom' at which a country can reach and go down no further. That things are worse today than they were a year ago is unquestionable. And while it is true that a lot of this fall in our fortunes was caused by the %$#&*#@% virus, not all of it was; a lot of it was also caused by a complete and disastrous failure of imagination on the part of Dr. Rowley & Co.