A Udecott housing development in Arima.

Guardian file photo

On Monday, a columnist in another newspaper wrote that Trinidad had become a “hell on earth,” that there could be no pretence that the country was anything but a “disaster area” and that if Trinidad was not a failed state, he did not know what was.

He cited as evidence of the hellish nature of life in this country the fact that “the public” had lost confidence in all of the country’s institutions and the 50 minutes it took to go through the green line at Piarco.

The columnist, William Lucie-Smith, is someone whose opinions on financial restructuring I have sought and benefited from in the past.

While this country has its fair share of problems, I do not share his view that this is “hell on earth” or a “disaster area.”

If it was either, I would not choose to live here and one suspects that Mr Lucie-Smith, his wife (who does a wonderful job promoting adult literacy) and his daughter would not choose to live here either. (Although one cannot discount the possibility that he is planning to migrate as we speak).

I get the impression that this sense of anomie—a society characterised by the absence or breakdown of social norms—is fairly widespread in T&T. But if it is, I wonder if there is anybody in this country who is doing better today than they were five or ten years ago.

Can it truthfully be said that not one of the 1.4 million T&T citizens is benefiting from the natural gas-led boom that this country is experiencing?

What about the thousands of families who have moved into new homes, built by the State, all around the country? One imagines that quite a few of those who are benefiting from new homes would have moved out of circumstances that are quite dire into new surroundings that are more pleasant. I wonder if those families would agree with Lucie-Smith that Trinidad is “hell on earth,” a “disaster area” or a “failed state.”

And what about the thousands of houses that have been and are being built by the private sector. In a story that the Business Guardian did in February, we reported on the fact that at least 2,300 houses are being built in and around Arima—by both the public and private sectors.

As someone who is a fairly recent resident in a new private sector real estate development, I can state, with some assurance, that the quality of my life has improved significantly as a result of my new home. And this is not to say that where I lived previously was not extremely comfortable because it was.

Am I the only person in this country who feels this way?

According to the Central Statistical Office, the rate of unemployment is as low as it has been in 30 years. This means that there would be thousands of people today who have jobs that they might not have had five or ten years ago.

While there is good evidence that too many of these jobs are in the construction sector, which is cyclical, it seems to me that the lowering of the rate of unemployment is one of the most important things that a country can do.

And I do agree with those, including Winston Dookeran, who believe that the Government needs to start thinking of reducing the size of the Unemployment Relief Programme and Cepep because of the contradiction between labour shortages in certain sectors and bloated social safety net jobs.

And what about those labour shortages: on Tuesday, I was struck by the fact that two neighbouring fast-food outlets on Independence Square (they share a wall) were both seeking new workers. If these food places can’t get workers who will accept the minimum wage, doesn’t it mean that they will have to pay their workers more or risk going out of business?

And what about those businessmen including the ones selling food on Independence Square?

Although their costs have escalated significantly in the last five years, is it not the case that their prices have escalated even faster in that period?

And given the fact that there are more people working today and that there are thousands of people who are paying reduced income taxes or no income taxes at all, does it not follow that the volume of business in this country has increased significantly in the last five years?

And it seems to me that if the volume of business has increased and businessmen have significant pricing power because the sharp increase in disposable income, then there must be at least one businessman in this whole country who is doing better financially today than five years ago.

It must be that those businessmen who are doing better are hiring more workers and paying them higher salaries.

When a man or woman who was unemployed before gets a job, it means that they now have an income of their own. They now have the ability to plan their future, save a good percentage of their salary for the rainy day, educate their children and perhaps go on vacation to somewhere other than Tobago by ferry. (And I am by no means knocking either Tobago or the fast ferry, both of which I think are great).

The point I am making here is that it is possible to conclude that Trinidad is “hell on earth” by listening to the radio talkshows, reading the newspaper headlines, looking at the television news and even talking to the man-in-the-street. But is that the reality?

And if Trinidad is “hell on earth,” how does one begin to describe the Darfur region in Sudan or parts of Niger where there are people who are dying because they can’t get a morsel to eat or a drop to drink?