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As To­ba­go heads in­to an­oth­er elec­tion cy­cle, econ­o­mist Dr Vanus James has is­sued a stark warn­ing: with­out fun­da­men­tal changes to how the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) and cen­tral gov­ern­ment ap­proach de­vel­op­ment, the is­land risks re­main­ing un­der­de­vel­oped in­def­i­nite­ly.

Speak­ing on the state’s role in en­tre­pre­neur­ship and eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, James ar­gued that the Gov­ern­ment is ill-equipped to dri­ve “Gold­en, high prof­it-mak­ing en­tre­pre­neur­ship”—the kind of ven­tures that could trans­form To­ba­go’s econ­o­my.

“You can’t do de­vel­op­ment un­der those con­di­tions. If you don’t want to face it as a coun­try, you’re just mak­ing the de­ci­sion to stay un­der­de­vel­oped for­ev­er,” he said.