Dr Winford James
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Credit unions - The heart of government?

October 12, 2003
by Dr Winford James


October is International Credit Union Month and the theme this year is 'Credit Unions - The heart of our community'. As a consequence, credit unions in the country will be behaving as if they are the heart of our local communities or, if not, as if they should be. The theme is a good one in its ability to focus credit unionists and the public at large, not only on the financial contribution of credit unions to the development of communities, but also on their caring, helping, humane, people-based character. It is a theme that will be launched today at the opening of Credit Union Week at the Savannah. But the question that occupies me in this week's column is, Are credit unions the heart of government - this PNM government?

They should be, given both the PNM's slogan of being the party that cares and the logic of the theme itself. The PNM 'cared' last year when in the budget speech PM Manning reinstituted the tax credit on share savings in credit unions (this time to a maximum of $10,000) and floated the idea of the desirability of a Credit Union Development Bank. Those two gestures were clear signs to credit unions of a difference of attitude towards them between the NAR and UNC governments, on the one hand, and the PNM government, on the other; the PNM were demonstrably more accommodating. And, if credit unions are indeed the heart of communities, then, to the extent that government is essentially about community building, credit unions should be the heart of government, especially one that prides itself on caring.

One could argue that the major intention behind the two budget measures announced last year was to increase inflows of cash into the credit union system and create a mechanism to fund and facilitate the development of communities, particularly the more economically challenged ones. But we have no clear knowledge at this time of the effect of the tax incentive, and this year's budget is strangely silent on the Bank.

Let's set aside the tax incentive for the rest of the column and focus on the Bank. Why the deafening silence on the Bank from a government that boasts it cares? After the floating of the Bank idea, the government had the credit union leaderships busy holding meetings with Mister E and amongst themselves, developing concept papers and a business plan, awarding contracts, and fretting over the division of funding. And then comes a succeeding budget that with muted but fluent tongue.

The fluency is everywhere - education and training, health, housing, culture, national security, physical infrastructure, social programmes, reforms of a variety of sectors, Caroni, the Revenue Stabilisation Fund, the Tobago House of Assembly. For me, some of the outstanding features are the creation of a Special Crime Fighting Unit, the allocation to the Revenue Stabilisation Fund, amendments to a number of Acts governing financial institutions, the focus on programmes for the protection of children and the training of youth, the phasing out of leaded gasoline, the promise of assistance to the THA in the accessing of $400M for capital investment projects. It is a big budget that caters to almost every malady and need in the society, and one is hard put to find omissions of import.

But surely the lack of follow up on the Bank is an omission of import? Or has the idea of the Bank been overtaken by another floated Bank idea - a merger of UTC and FCB, itself another omission of import?

Now, I don't know about the rest of you, but I have been seeing a new Manning, post-Panday - a Manning I like. He is a fella far more secure in his intuitions about how to govern. He will pursue a plan if he sees the need for it, but others, even within the inner circle, don't. He understands that there is a continuing, unsupportable, massive lopsidedness in the distribution of wealth in the country and in the patterns of ownership. He sees the need to turn things around for wider economic justice, and that is why, I believe, he floated those two Bank ideas.

Can you imagine community development, in a sense far wider and deeper than is popularly understood at present, being funded through people-based financial institutions like credit unions? Can you imagine government development funds being channelled through credit unions far more than through banks? Can you imagine what a merger of UTC and FCB would do for the redirectioning and distribution of wealth?

It takes courage to buck the entrenchments, hegemonies, oligarchies, and dynasties of the few who have owned the ascending heights of this country for so long. Is Manning's courage weakening? Or is he waiting until amendments to the Cooperative Societies' Act and other Acts are in place? Will credit unions then be the heart of government?


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