Keith Rowley is ending his destructive near-decade-long tenure as Prime Minister with a legacy of woeful and deep-rooted failures that have precipitously diminished citizens’ quality of life. He is the only Prime Minister in our history who has not made a single tangible achievement during his tenure.

History will recall Rowley as presiding over an ever-worsening crime epidemic that cost thousands of innocent lives, a catastrophic public healthcare system, the collapse of the economy, grinding poverty, deteriorated physical infrastructure and overall national hardship. More than that, Rowley will be defined by his poor work ethic, caustic manner, unbounded ignorance, and partiality to blaming others for his ingrained incompetence.

Even as he withdraws from a post for which he is ill-suited, it is evident that his retirement follows closely on the heels of Donald Trump’s election as US President. For years, Rowley was warned that he was taking our country down a dangerous pathway in his dealings with the narco-trafficking regime of Nicolas Maduro. Yet, he persisted in dealings to aid the Maduro regime and local business interests connected to the Venezuelan government.

US authorities are already taking action against individuals and entities that have collaborated with the Maduro regime. OFAC is dead, along with other Biden-era concessions to the Maduro government. With his retirement coinciding with the eleventh-hour suspicious sale of the Petrotrin refinery to a company internationally flagged for corruption, Rowley seems to be setting the groundwork to flee the country and the coming legal repercussions of his Venezuelan dealings.

Don’t be fooled; Rowley’s retirement appears not to be about riding off into the sunset but about fleeing the mess he has landed himself in with his dealings with the dictatorial, kleptocratic, drug-trafficking Maduro regime. His hand-picked successor, Minister Young, who worked as the facilitator of these deals, will soon face the same punitive fate as Rowley.

Over the past ten years, Rowley and his ministers have failed to diversify the economy even as energy sector production steadily declined and idle industrial plants created a rust belt. They have taken Trinidad and Tobago from being the region’s energy hub to now exporting scrap iron for forex.

The education system fell into crisis when there were historic achievements a mere decade before, and students were prepared for the fast-evolving and diverse world of work. He took away laptops, GATE opportunities and scholarships from our young people but gave them legalized marijuana to smoke.

Rowley’s policies destroyed the agricultural sector and led to an 85 per cent increase in annual food imports, misusing scarce foreign exchange by directing it into the hands of an elite few. At the same time, more than 75,000 acres of arable former Caroni lands were parcelled off to political cronies.

He turned Trinidad and Tobago from the Caribbean’s greatest beneficiary of direct foreign investment into the only country in the region with a net outflow of investors.

Under his watch, the national infrastructure was wrecked, homelessness became more widespread, and there is a steady brain drain of professionals seeking opportunities abroad.

Rowley destroyed the independence of virtually every independent institution, mismanaged the State sector, ruined the nation’s image internationally, and oversaw a regression in societal harmony. He destroyed democracy within his own party, the PNM, by taking away PNM member’s rights to select a national executive and a leader.

His decade of disastrous negligence has radically set back Trinidad and Tobago’s thrust toward a modern, evolved society with a diversified economy, opportunities for all, and a proud international standing.

The immediate goal must be to move past Rowley’s wretched tenure, and the first measure must be to summon the nation to a general election.

The people are the nation’s richest and most prized resource, and I am convinced that, with purpose and diligence, we can rebuild after the Rowley devastation.