I HAVE looked at the laborious trifling of Vyash Nandlal, who is economic researcher and advisor in the Office of the Prime Minister and sits on several state boards, the motive of which was to criticise the UNC for not attending the recently concluded Agri-Invest Expo.
The UNC assertion that the Expo was a “pappyshow” by PRO Dr Kirk Meighoo is equally understandable given that the UNC feels it is compelled to criticise everything the government does as the political leader indicated from the platform the supreme paramountcy of the political UNC party over country.
Nandlal’s analysis lacked any scholarly rigour or robust research and the OPM would do well to review if such mediocre cheerleaders are worthy of such important roles. Nandlal review of the Peoples Partnership Government’s stewardship and management of the agricultural sector 2010 to 15 made assertions which were not based on fact but instead flights of fancy to apparently curry favour with the political paymasters.
The ill-advised political hack made the sweeping statement that “During the UNC’s tenure in government from 2010 to 2015, a cumulative sum of $7.5 billion was spent on the agriculture sector.”
The obvious implication was that there were no results commensurate with this expenditure. Of course, no analysis was done to show that over 70% of this allocation went to staffing and administrative expenditure and the little remaining went to developmental projects. Propaganda however does not concern itself with facts.
Nandlal omits mentioning that there was a strategic plan for the ministry that outlined the approach to revive the sector- a plan which is still up on the ministry’s website.
Without a plan – stakeholders – local, regional and international- don’t know what the objective and how they can participate in achieving these goals. Without a plan – you don’t know where you are going therefore no one can hold you to account.
“What gets measured gets done.” All of the ministry employees and were coalesced around achieving plans and objectives. What’s the goal? How are we going to get there? When do we know when we reach? What are the skill set required? Do we have all within the ministry? What do we need to outsource locally and from our international partners – FAO, IICA, bilateral and multilateral assistance from other countries – like we received from India.
Nandlal apparently learned from being creative with statistics when he indicated that “during UNC’s tenure, food price inflation reached as high as 19% in 2012” and asserted that under the PNM 2015 to 2020 it was below 5%.
The food inflation rate, as calculated by the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago, has remained in single digits for April 2014. For January 2014 it was 3.2%; for February 2014 it was 5.2%; for March 2014 it was 6.7% and for April 2014 food inflation rate came in at 4.1%.
For the first time in 21 years T&T’s food price inflation rate remained single digits for the first four consecutive months of the year.
Nandlal chose to ignore the global and regional economic factors when he cherrypicked snapshot in time ignoring the historic low food inflation figures.
It was not surprising that Nandlal chose to excavate the Ernst and Young report on Caroni Green Ltd, what he failed to report was that Ernst and Young was commissioned by the ministry to conduct the report during its pilot phase so as to identify any and all weaknesses of the new company to improve upon it.
This was achieved by the report which pointed out deficiencies. While Nandlal celebrates with glee these deficiencies he conspicuously ignores the achievements of Caroni Green Ltd. More importantly, Nandlal got it wrong again as there existed a Caroni Green Initiative and Caroni Green Ltd.
Caroni Green Limited was incorporated and formed to facilitate the bringing idle and or underutilised agricultural lands throughout Trinidad into active agricultural production.
The Caroni Green Initiative(CGI) was different to Caroni Green Limited (CGL) which was a project started in March 2013 and ended in May 2014 under Caroni (1975) Limited. The EY Audit was on the Caroni (1975) Limited’s Project – CGI and not CGL. Such egregious omissions of the fast and loose facts undermine the faith the reader can place in Mr Nandlal naked, vulgar and obscene politicisation of the facts.
Had Nandlal taken the time to research the facts objectively he would seen the vast improvements to the agricultural sector with achievements in:
(1) Livestock/Dairy such as 0pened two modern Dairy Processing Facilities at Aripo and Sugarcane Feed Centre, launching a locally branded milk “Trinidad and Tobago Fresh Pasteurised Milk;”
(2) Plant Propagation such as the revitalisation of the La Pastora Propagation Station launched in 2013, the re-commissioning of the Marper Propagation Station launched in 2013;
(3) Cocoa sector such as the launching the T&T Fine Cocoa Company Ltd Factory;
(4) Packinghouse/Infrastructure in Brechin Castle Packing House Facility, Couva and Brickfield Packing House, Tabaquite, the Central Farmers Wholesale Market at Woodford Lodge, Chaguanas, the constructed a covered inter-bay at the Norris Deonarine Northern Wholesale Market in Macoya;
(5) Infrastructural upgrades to the fish markets and depots nationally;
(6) Aquaculture revitalisation;
(7) School Feeding Programme mandate to use local produce equaling 70% of its menu;
(8) Staples revitalisation including rice and cassava initiatives;
(10) Revised the Agricultural Incentive Programme. Approximately 2, 412 applications valued at over $10 million; and
(11) Reduction of ADB interest rates from 8% to 11% to 3%-5% and 12 massive infrastructure development programmes for agriculture access roads, excavation and desilting of ponds.
Dr Devant Maharaj is a former minister of food production under the UNC administration 2010 to 2015.
No Nandlal: More Research Needed
I HAVE looked at the laborious trifling of Vyash Nandlal, who is economic researcher and advisor in the Office of the Prime Minister and sits on several state boards, the motive of which was to criticise the UNC for not attending the recently concluded Agri-Invest Expo.
The UNC assertion that the Expo was a “pappyshow” by PRO Dr Kirk Meighoo is equally understandable given that the UNC feels it is compelled to criticise everything the government does as the political leader indicated from the platform the supreme paramountcy of the political UNC party over country.
Nandlal’s analysis lacked any scholarly rigour or robust research and the OPM would do well to review if such mediocre cheerleaders are worthy of such important roles. Nandlal review of the Peoples Partnership Government’s stewardship and management of the agricultural sector 2010 to 15 made assertions which were not based on fact but instead flights of fancy to apparently curry favour with the political paymasters.
The ill-advised political hack made the sweeping statement that “During the UNC’s tenure in government from 2010 to 2015, a cumulative sum of $7.5 billion was spent on the agriculture sector.”
The obvious implication was that there were no results commensurate with this expenditure. Of course, no analysis was done to show that over 70% of this allocation went to staffing and administrative expenditure and the little remaining went to developmental projects. Propaganda however does not concern itself with facts.
Nandlal omits mentioning that there was a strategic plan for the ministry that outlined the approach to revive the sector- a plan which is still up on the ministry’s website.
Without a plan – stakeholders – local, regional and international- don’t know what the objective and how they can participate in achieving these goals. Without a plan – you don’t know where you are going therefore no one can hold you to account.
“What gets measured gets done.” All of the ministry employees and were coalesced around achieving plans and objectives. What’s the goal? How are we going to get there? When do we know when we reach? What are the skill set required? Do we have all within the ministry? What do we need to outsource locally and from our international partners – FAO, IICA, bilateral and multilateral assistance from other countries – like we received from India.
Nandlal apparently learned from being creative with statistics when he indicated that “during UNC’s tenure, food price inflation reached as high as 19% in 2012” and asserted that under the PNM 2015 to 2020 it was below 5%.
The food inflation rate, as calculated by the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago, has remained in single digits for April 2014. For January 2014 it was 3.2%; for February 2014 it was 5.2%; for March 2014 it was 6.7% and for April 2014 food inflation rate came in at 4.1%.
For the first time in 21 years T&T’s food price inflation rate remained single digits for the first four consecutive months of the year.
Nandlal chose to ignore the global and regional economic factors when he cherrypicked snapshot in time ignoring the historic low food inflation figures.
It was not surprising that Nandlal chose to excavate the Ernst and Young report on Caroni Green Ltd, what he failed to report was that Ernst and Young was commissioned by the ministry to conduct the report during its pilot phase so as to identify any and all weaknesses of the new company to improve upon it.
This was achieved by the report which pointed out deficiencies. While Nandlal celebrates with glee these deficiencies he conspicuously ignores the achievements of Caroni Green Ltd. More importantly, Nandlal got it wrong again as there existed a Caroni Green Initiative and Caroni Green Ltd.
Caroni Green Limited was incorporated and formed to facilitate the bringing idle and or underutilised agricultural lands throughout Trinidad into active agricultural production.
The Caroni Green Initiative(CGI) was different to Caroni Green Limited (CGL) which was a project started in March 2013 and ended in May 2014 under Caroni (1975) Limited. The EY Audit was on the Caroni (1975) Limited’s Project – CGI and not CGL. Such egregious omissions of the fast and loose facts undermine the faith the reader can place in Mr Nandlal naked, vulgar and obscene politicisation of the facts.
Had Nandlal taken the time to research the facts objectively he would seen the vast improvements to the agricultural sector with achievements in:
(1) Livestock/Dairy such as 0pened two modern Dairy Processing Facilities at Aripo and Sugarcane Feed Centre, launching a locally branded milk “Trinidad and Tobago Fresh Pasteurised Milk;”
(2) Plant Propagation such as the revitalisation of the La Pastora Propagation Station launched in 2013, the re-commissioning of the Marper Propagation Station launched in 2013;
(3) Cocoa sector such as the launching the T&T Fine Cocoa Company Ltd Factory;
(4) Packinghouse/Infrastructure in Brechin Castle Packing House Facility, Couva and Brickfield Packing House, Tabaquite, the Central Farmers Wholesale Market at Woodford Lodge, Chaguanas, the constructed a covered inter-bay at the Norris Deonarine Northern Wholesale Market in Macoya;
(5) Infrastructural upgrades to the fish markets and depots nationally;
(6) Aquaculture revitalisation;
(7) School Feeding Programme mandate to use local produce equaling 70% of its menu;
(8) Staples revitalisation including rice and cassava initiatives;
(10) Revised the Agricultural Incentive Programme. Approximately 2, 412 applications valued at over $10 million; and
(11) Reduction of ADB interest rates from 8% to 11% to 3%-5% and 12 massive infrastructure development programmes for agriculture access roads, excavation and desilting of ponds.
Dr Devant Maharaj is a former minister of food production under the UNC administration 2010 to 2015.
See commentary by Vyash Nandlal below: