The PNM Manifesto: Notes, Part I.

Disclaimer: To be clear, I will be expressing opinions on the People's Partnership manifesto as well. And since I am not voting in this General Election and have been irked by both sides, I am being as fair as possible.

I've been reading the political manifesto of the PNM (available here) for this general election. For one, whoever designed the PDF clearly didn't modify it for the Internet - that 20 megabyte download is a real pain and highlights a certain lack of understanding of web technology that speaks as well of the present dominant party as the government websites. That was not a compliment.

That said... section by section. The manifesto quotations are in italics, my comments below them. I won't go over all of them, but I will go over some points that interest me. I do have a life, you know...

The Historic Perspective

Maintained and expanded health care, education, social services, public transport and national security initiatives and services despite worsened financial circumstances triggered offshore Increased the balance in our Revenue Stabilisation Fund, which now stands at $19.5 billion.

A distinction must be drawn between building more buildings and expanding health care. As far as actual health care I cannot say that anything has really changed in the last 8 years. Perhaps the PNM could provide some examples? The same goes with education. Social services I have little comment on since I don't avail myself of such.

Public transportation - how long can one claim those accordion buses? The water taxi seems popular for the people that use it, and the bypass is nice. But overall, I can't say that transportation has improved. What I would say is that they have managed to almost keep pace with the increase in the use of roads over the last 8 years. Almost. But that sort of almost is like claiming to be pregnant when one is almost pregnant. I believe that the average person hasn't seen an improvement - in fact, personally, I've seen it go the other way. I have yet to figure out how the new PriceSmart in San Fernando got that horrid light installed at their entrance. Or how they got cleared to create more traffic on a major artery of the South.

The Revenue Stabilisation Fund being at $19.5 billion sounds nice - but maybe more efficient and honest accounting practices could have raised that some more.

Managed to maintain affordable food prices even as the world reeled under global food inflation.

Umm. OK. Sure. I can't prove or disprove that. I think they would be hard pressed to prove or disprove it themselves.

Reduced inflation on a year-on year basis from 11.7% in February 2009 to 4.8% in February 2010

OK, that's a 6.9% decrease in the last year. But this doesn't jive with the numbers on the EconomyWatch.com website for Trinidad and Tobago. That site has 6.97% inflation for 2009 and 3.17% for 2010 - a difference of 3.8%. So maybe the PNM are overstating this.

And, oddly, they aren't discussing the inflation rate prior to 2009. According to the same page I referenced above, 2008 had the highest inflation rate at 12.05%.

All of that said - controlling inflation in a single country is a lot like swimming in the ocean. There are highs and lows - and while the PNM government may have had something to do with it, they neglect to mention that the world economy may have helped with that... and that, perhaps, the Opposition might have played a role. So this is an obtuse claim at best.

Significantly improved the quality and capacity of our road network.

Umm. No you didn't. You did some things, yes, but as someone who uses the roads without a police escort, I must tell you... no.

Successfully hosted the 5th Summit of the Americas and the Commonwealth Heads
of Government meetings and so established Trinidad and Tobago as a significant
partner in world affairs, and a leader in the region

'Success' is measured... how, exactly? To me, both were expenditures that have not shown any form of 'success'. We lead the world in having Chavez hand Obama a book. That's about it.

I had a party and it made me popular with the friend I had over for the duration of the party. They left. I cleaned up, paid the bills and... it was a successful party. We all had a good time. But did it benefit my neighborhood? No.

So, on this: Epic Fail.

Ramped up the delivery of affordable housing for low income earners.

'Ramped up'? You pull numbers out for economic information and you can't tell us how many people? Odd.

Increased our score on Human Development Index (HDI) of the United Nations, which is a measure of the quality of life in a country, from an HDI of 0.802 in 2001 to an HDI of 0.837 in 2007, and climbing.

Right. Exactly right. But compared to the 2006 data, we actually dropped a ranking in the HDI. See for yourself, it's on the right of this page.

In fact, if you look at the charted HDI index data on the UNDP website, you'll see that the trend was something that the existing government inherited.

Thus, while true... it doesn't mean anything. And to add to that, there's a UNDP discussion about whether the HDI is still relevant.

Acquired a range of new military assets to assist in the fight against the international drug trade and crime, including offshore patrol vessels, fast patrol craft, interceptors, armed
helicopters and radar systems

Yes, yes you have. But we're not seeing any results from this, are we?

To be continued...