Kirk Ram­per­sad

It is 10:20 on a week­day morn­ing. A small busi­ness own­er has al­ready lost half a day. One of­fice re­quests a doc­u­ment that an­oth­er of­fice is­sued. The on­line por­tal is un­avail­able. Pay­ment must be made else­where. An em­ploy­ee is trapped in traf­fic, a cus­tomer awaits an an­swer and a ten o’clock meet­ing starts twen­ty min­utes late.

Every­one is busy. Very lit­tle has moved.

In my pre­vi­ous ar­ti­cle, The Be­hav­iour­al Re­ces­sion, I ar­gued that de­clin­ing trust, dis­ci­pline, re­spect and civic re­spon­si­bil­i­ty car­ry an eco­nom­ic cost. When those be­hav­iours meet slow sys­tems, weak ac­count­abil­i­ty and out­dat­ed process­es, the re­sult is a pro­duc­tiv­i­ty deficit: a widen­ing gap be­tween the ef­fort T&T ex­pends and the val­ue it pro­duces.

Our prob­lem is not a short­age of tal­ent or hard work. It is leak­age. Time dis­ap­pears through con­ges­tion, du­pli­ca­tion, re­work, poor co­or­di­na­tion and de­layed de­ci­sions. Each in­con­ve­nience seems man­age­able. To­geth­er, they be­come a na­tion­al tax on growth.

When busy­ness is nistak­en for progress

Pro­duc­tiv­i­ty is not about mak­ing em­ploy­ees work longer or faster. It means pro­duc­ing greater val­ue from the time, skills, tech­nol­o­gy and cap­i­tal al­ready avail­able.

A pro­duc­tive or­gan­i­sa­tion mea­sures out­comes, not ac­tiv­i­ty. Meet­ings end with de­ci­sions.

Cus­tomers re­ceive an­swers. Tech­nol­o­gy re­moves steps. Em­ploy­ees un­der­stand pri­or­i­ties. Prob­lems are cor­rect­ed be­fore they re­cur.

Too of­ten, busy­ness sub­sti­tutes for progress. We count emails, meet­ings, forms, pro­grammes and an­nounce­ments while over­look­ing com­ple­tion times, qual­i­ty, cost and im­pact. Vis­i­ble ef­fort can there­fore co­ex­ist with lim­it­ed de­liv­ery.

T&T no longer has the fis­cal or eco­nom­ic space to ab­sorb per­sis­tent in­ef­fi­cien­cy.

The num­bers be­hind the warn­ing

In May 2026, the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund re­port­ed that re­al GDP grew by on­ly 0.8 per cent in 2025 and pro­ject­ed sim­i­lar growth for 2026. It al­so es­ti­mat­ed a fis­cal deficit of 5.5 per cent of GDP in 2025, along­side ris­ing pub­lic debt. With growth this mod­est, pro­duc­tiv­i­ty is the dif­fer­ence be­tween stag­na­tion and high­er liv­ing stan­dards.

Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice da­ta for the fourth quar­ter of 2025 record­ed 569,900 em­ployed peo­ple and un­em­ploy­ment of 4.3 per cent. Yet labour-force par­tic­i­pa­tion was on­ly 55.1 per cent, while 485,300 peo­ple aged 15 and over re­mained out­side the labour force for rea­sons in­clud­ing ed­u­ca­tion, care­giv­ing, re­tire­ment, dis­abil­i­ty and dis­cour­age­ment.

This is not sim­ply an un­em­ploy­ment prob­lem. It is a par­tic­i­pa­tion, skills and util­i­sa­tion prob­lem.

Di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion can­not suc­ceed while hu­man ca­pa­bil­i­ty re­mains dis­con­nect­ed from pro­duc­tive op­por­tu­ni­ty.

The re­gion­al warn­ing is sharp­er. The In­ter­na­tion­al Labour Or­gan­i­sa­tion re­port­ed that Caribbean labour pro­duc­tiv­i­ty de­clined by an av­er­age of 0.6 per cent an­nu­al­ly be­tween 2015 and 2025, while the world record­ed growth of 1.7 per cent. The OECD found that Caribbean pro­duc­tiv­i­ty av­er­aged on­ly 42.5 per cent of OECD lev­els over three decades. T&T has out­per­formed many of its neigh­bours, but its ad­van­tage has been heav­i­ly sup­port­ed by en­er­gy.

Fu­ture gains must be broad­er.

Fric­tion Is an In­vis­i­ble Tax

Every un­nec­es­sary step im­pos­es a cost. A de­layed ap­proval post­pones in­vest­ment. Re­peat of­fice vis­its con­sume wages and trans­port mon­ey. Frag­ment­ed ship­ping process­es tie up work­ing cap­i­tal. Man­agers who cor­rect avoid­able er­rors lose time to strat­e­gy. Em­ploy­ees spend­ing hours in traf­fic ar­rive de­plet­ed.

This is na­tion­al fric­tion: small de­lays that ac­cu­mu­late un­til gov­ern­ment, busi­ness and dai­ly life be­come more ex­pen­sive.

Fric­tion al­so wors­ens the be­hav­iour­al pres­sures dis­cussed in my pre­vi­ous ar­ti­cle. When sys­tems dis­re­gard peo­ple’s time, frus­tra­tion ris­es. When rules are in­con­sis­tent, short­cuts be­come tempt­ing. When poor per­for­mance car­ries no con­se­quence, con­sci­en­tious em­ploy­ees be­come dis­cour­aged. In­ef­fi­cien­cy, there­fore, slows the econ­o­my while teach­ing the wrong be­hav­iours.

Tech­nol­o­gy Is not­trans­for­ma­tion

Dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion cre­ates op­por­tu­ni­ty, but plac­ing an old process on­line does not make it pro­duc­tive.

A ten-step pa­per pro­ce­dure con­vert­ed in­to ten dig­i­tal screens re­mains a ten-step pro­ce­dure.

The In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank ap­proved a US$90 mil­lion dig­i­tal-trans­for­ma­tion cred­it line for Trinidad and To­ba­go, be­gin­ning with a US$42 mil­lion loan. The pro­gramme aims to sim­pli­fy pub­lic ser­vices, strength­en work­force and busi­ness ca­pa­bil­i­ties, sup­port more than 150 firms and train over 500 pub­lic ser­vants. Suc­cess should be mea­sured by hours saved, trans­ac­tions com­plet­ed, costs re­duced and cit­i­zen sat­is­fac­tion im­proved.

The prin­ci­ple is sim­ple: re-en­gi­neer be­fore digi­tis­ing. The gov­ern­ment should not re­peat­ed­ly re­quest in­for­ma­tion it al­ready holds. Sys­tems should com­mu­ni­cate. Ser­vices should fol­low life events: start­ing a busi­ness, build­ing a home, seek­ing care or pay­ing tax­es, rather than or­gan­i­sa­tion­al charts.

Busi­ness­es need the same dis­ci­pline. Tech­nol­o­gy should re­move repet­i­tive work, im­prove de­ci­sions and strength­en cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ence, not mere­ly add sub­scrip­tions and dash­boards.

Our peo­ple are the pro­duc­tiv­i­ty strat­e­gy

Tech­nol­o­gy can­not com­pen­sate for skills that do not match emerg­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties. A Sep­tem­ber 2025 IDB as­sess­ment of tech­ni­cal and vo­ca­tion­al ed­u­ca­tion iden­ti­fied frag­ment­ed gov­er­nance, lim­it­ed em­ploy­er en­gage­ment and no com­pre­hen­sive labour-mar­ket in­for­ma­tion sys­tem. It rec­om­mend­ed stronger co­or­di­na­tion, uni­fied ap­pren­tice­ships, em­ploy­er-based train­ing and clear­er path­ways for young peo­ple.

Ed­u­ca­tion providers need cur­rent in­tel­li­gence on the ca­pa­bil­i­ties em­ploy­ers re­quire. Busi­ness­es must help de­sign cur­ric­u­la, of­fer ap­pren­tice­ships and in­vest in con­tin­u­ous learn­ing in­stead of on­ly com­plain­ing about short­ages. Work­ers must al­so recog­nise that em­ploy­a­bil­i­ty is no longer se­cured by one qual­i­fi­ca­tion earned years ago.

Ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence, au­toma­tion and dig­i­tal ser­vices will change tasks across fi­nance, man­u­fac­tur­ing, en­er­gy, re­tail, com­mu­ni­ca­tions and gov­ern­ment. The choice is not tech­nol­o­gy or peo­ple. It is prepar­ing peo­ple to use tech­nol­o­gy pro­duc­tive­ly or al­low­ing the tran­si­tion to widen in­equal­i­ty.

In­no­va­tion of­fers mea­sur­able re­turns. A re­cent IDB Caribbean study found that in­no­v­a­tive firms achieved 26 to 35 per cent high­er pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and 21 to 81 per cent high­er sales per work­er than non-in­no­v­a­tive firms, de­pend­ing on the in­no­va­tion. For T&T, in­no­va­tion must be­come an op­er­at­ing dis­ci­pline, not an an­nu­al con­fer­ence theme.

Ac­count­abil­i­ty must be­come op­er­a­tional

Pro­duc­tiv­i­ty im­proves when ex­pec­ta­tions are clear and con­se­quences cred­i­ble. Every pub­lic agency and ma­jor ser­vice provider should pub­lish un­der­stand­able mea­sures: pro­cess­ing times, back­logs, up­time, cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion, project com­ple­tion and cost vari­ance. Busi­ness­es should ap­ply the same dis­ci­pline in­ter­nal­ly.

Mea­sure­ment must lead to ac­tion. Strong per­form­ers should be recog­nised, weak process­es re­designed and per­sis­tent non-per­for­mance ad­dressed. Ac­count­abil­i­ty is not hu­mil­i­a­tion; it is re­spect for the peo­ple whose tax­es, fees and labour sus­tain an in­sti­tu­tion.

Lead­er­ship al­so re­quires main­te­nance. Trinidad and To­ba­go of­ten funds launch­es but ne­glects preser­va­tion. Roads, drains, build­ings, tech­nol­o­gy and equip­ment lose val­ue when up­keep is post­poned. A pro­duc­tiv­i­ty cul­ture pro­tects as­sets be­fore fail­ure makes re­place­ment more ex­pen­sive.

A na­tion­al pro­duc­tiv­i­ty com­pact

Mov­ing for­ward re­quires more than an­oth­er com­mit­tee. It re­quires a com­pact among gov­ern­ment, busi­ness, labour, ed­u­ca­tion and cit­i­zens built on five com­mit­ments.

➢ First, val­ue time. Set and en­force ser­vice stan­dards, be­gin meet­ings punc­tu­al­ly, sim­pli­fy ap­provals and de­sign process­es that min­imise re­peat vis­its;

➢ Sec­ond, mea­sure out­comes. Pub­licly track whether pro­grammes im­prove lives, not mere­ly whether funds were al­lo­cat­ed or ac­tiv­i­ties oc­curred;

➢ Third, con­nect learn­ing to work. Build em­ploy­er-led ap­pren­tice­ships, mod­u­lar cre­den­tials and reskilling path­ways tied to ac­tu­al de­mand;

➢ Fourth, re­ward in­no­va­tion and re­spon­si­ble per­for­mance. Give firms, teams and pub­lic agen­cies room to test bet­ter meth­ods, while re­quir­ing ev­i­dence of re­sults;

➢ Fifth, re­store every­day dis­ci­pline. Cour­tesy, punc­tu­al­i­ty, ac­cu­ra­cy, main­te­nance and re­spect for rules may ap­pear or­di­nary, but they are the habits through which pro­duc­tiv­i­ty be­comes cul­ture.

The Be­hav­iour­al Re­ces­sion de­scribed how de­clin­ing so­cial con­duct weak­ens eco­nom­ic life. The pro­duc­tiv­i­ty deficit shows the re­verse is al­so true: frus­trat­ing sys­tems can deep­en anger, dis­trust and with­draw­al. We must there­fore re­pair be­hav­iour and sys­tems to­geth­er.

T&T does not need its peo­ple to run faster in­side a ma­chine that wastes their ef­fort. It needs a bet­ter ma­chine—sim­pler in­sti­tu­tions, ca­pa­ble work­ers, ac­count­able lead­ers and tech­nol­o­gy de­signed around out­comes.

Our fu­ture will not be de­ter­mined by how busy we ap­pear, how many plans we pub­lish or how of­ten we an­nounce trans­for­ma­tion. It will be de­ter­mined by what works, what im­proves and what we com­plete.

The next stage of na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment be­gins when ef­fort is fi­nal­ly con­vert­ed in­to last­ing val­ue for all

.

Kirk Ram­per­sad is a busi­ness, mar­ket­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tions ex­ec­u­tive who ad­vis­es or­gan­i­sa­tions on strat­e­gy, brand growth, in­no­va­tion and cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ence. He writes on lead­er­ship, mar­ket­ing, con­sumer be­hav­iour, in­no­va­tion and strate­gic growth. For ex­ec­u­tive ad­vi­so­ry, con­sult­ing, or col­lab­o­ra­tion op­por­tu­ni­ties, con­tact via email: kirkram@hot­mail.com or con­nect on linkedin.com/in/kirk-ram­per­sad-mba-5ab579268