Imagine for a moment that there was no PNM, no UNC, no political parties, no race, no sects just people living in a country called Trinidad & Tobago. Imagine that those people set out on a mission to make their country the pride not only of the Caribbean but of the world.
First, they decided to clean up the place. They collected all the derelict vehicles, stoves fridges, discarded ships, and every piece of metal that was not in immediate use and sold it to the scrap dealers. They made quite a lot of money from old buses and discarded government vehicles and the scrap dealers were extremely happy.
They then decided that to make the place manageable they would need to divide the country into towns and villages. That was easy as the towns and villages were already named, many had a police station assigned to that area and altogether the people were able to clearly define almost ninety such towns and villages with their own unique history.
In each town and village, the people elected a management committee. This committee was mandated to ensure that their community had a reliable water supply, very good roads and bridges and recreational facilities. The people then decided to incentivize certain activities within the community. The community with the cleanest streets and houses, the community with the best landscaping, the community with the lowest crime levels would all receive monetary rewards for their efforts.
The people then decided that every piece of agricultural land would be cultivated. Shortly afterwards they were producing large quantities of sugar cane for local sugar consumption, rum, and molasses. They exploited the newly rediscovered Moruga hill rice and exported that to the international market as one of the world’s best tasting rice. It was marketed as rear and unique. That was not all, the cocoa and coffee fields were revived through incentive and agricultural subsidies. Within a short time, the country was overwhelmed with local production of poultry, beef, chicken, corn, green vegetables, peppers, coconuts, and citrus. Trinidad & Tobago were not only able to feed themselves they were able to export their produce to the international markets.
The people noted that their country was unique. They had a massive pitch lake, mud volcanoes, rivers, beautiful mountains, underground caves, swamps, beautiful beaches, and waterfalls. They wanted to share that with the world but before doing so they invested in infrastructure that made those attractions safe and on par with international standards. The tourism industry grew so fast that businesses were struggling to keep up with the demand for hotels and car rentals.
The people used their wealth to support the young people in music, trades, many were employed as park rangers to patrol the mountains, beaches, hiking trails, camping sites and caves. They encouraged sporting competition among the communities. They arranged for each community to manage their police patrols and ensured that their community was safe.
To be continued
Steve Alvarez