The big problem facing T&T today is not the continued reliance on oil and gas-this we need still-but a lack of imagination which is very much now necessary to come out of the rut.

With the wars to end in Israel and Russia in the not-too-distant future (hopefully), there will be huge dependence on obtaining materials for rebuilding thousands of cities and towns. Two of the most demanded material requirements will be cement and steel rods.

As for the steel, it is unacceptable that we are at present looking for a buyer for the idle Ispat plant which produces iron rods from ingots; so why can T&T not have a distribution warehouse in the East to receive and sell the iron rods produced here, and obtain a huge piece of the coming business by taking over the Ispat plant and running it ourselves now? Why not?

As for cement: why not build a cement plant in Palestine to manufacture the cement there, of which there will not be enough in the world to produce when the time comes and when demand will be far greater than supply? Are we going to sit down and do nothing and allow Turkey to rule the cement roost?

Such a new, diversified Trini business could be a joint venture between TCL, the T&T Government and even Caribbean governments, as we have the expertise and an already trained workforce.

These are just simple explanations of desirable innovation that is patently lacking and ignored in many well-written commentaries. A desk job is not representative of true productive wealth, which, hypothetically speaking, is derived from a sugarcane labourer brandishing a cutlass. Economists must leave their desks now and travel to new frontiers instead of pen-pushing with intellectualism that gets the country nowhere.

Whether these projects can be fruitful or possible requires review, but the point is that with no ideas and no dreams to fulfil to bring creativity to fruition, we will be sunk below the desert sand in the Sahara.

Our country needs a new work ideology with national goal congruence and a purposed statement to achieve progress that encompasses the entire community. It is more than time to dismantle the entrenched bureaucracy that hinders businessmen in T&T and dismantle State ownership of irrelevant State companies as well as most of the commanding heights. This is what Ayn Rand and eminent former Barbados Central Bank governor Sir Courtney Blackman would say to T&T.

‘Tis time for action and ’tis time to open roads for farmers to move product to the market, euphemistically speaking.

Time for urgent change is imminent- for salvation from possible economic death.

Peter S Moralles
Cascade