ECONOMIST CALLS FOR GUN AMNESTY, CURFEW

With an almost 50% reduction in murders compared to the same period last year, one economist believes a gun amnesty and a curfew, could only help.

Transcript

00:00As of Monday afternoon, 13 murders had been recorded, compared to 23 for the same period in 2024.

00:08Economist Roger Hossain believes the government should build on this momentum, as crime is a major obstacle to economic growth.

00:15What it needs to be supplemented by, in my humble understanding of the facts, and I speak more as a citizen,

00:20is I think you should run a gun amnesty and give people who are making a decision,

00:25should I commit crime with a gun? Yes, no. Yes, no.

00:28Give them a chance to bring the gun and not make that decision and change their lives.

00:33A gun amnesty could possibly help. I'm not saying it would, and I speak as a layperson.

00:38And the other thing is going to implement a curfew and go after areas that you know there are guns.

00:44Hossain says despite Moody's stable outlook for TNT, issued back in December, there is still much work to be done.

00:51I haven't seen any changes. Our labor force participation rate is still 54.5 percent,

00:57the second lowest in the English-speaking Caribbean.

01:00Our overall GDP and economic activity is about 18 percent lower than 2015.

01:06The production of crude oil continues to fall. The production of natural gas continues to fall.

01:11The employed labor force is much lower than 2015.

01:16Price levels are still growing. It is not growing dramatically,

01:19but even a 0.0001 percent increase in the inflation rate means the price levels have increased.

01:27And once wages are constant, it means real wages are falling.

01:30He acknowledges, though, that there has been some increase in economic activity,

01:35but he's issuing the following warning.

01:37If it is we increase non-energy output, it must be an increase in non-energy output

01:43that merits foreign exchange, not non-energy output that increases demand for foreign exchange.

01:49And when you look at the data, you will see it's construction, transportation,

01:54and one or two other sectors that generally are intensive in the use of foreign exchange

01:59and also intensive in the use of Venezuelan labor.

02:03So no wonder to me, I am not surprised that the stock of reserves continue to fall.

02:08All growth is not equal to good growth.

02:11And we may be getting non-energy import intensive growth

02:15that would asymptotically in the long run choke this economy.

02:19Renasa Kattain, TV6 News.