Trinis head back home
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By Peter Balroop
The brain drain is on the brink of being reversed. T&T professionals, as well as less-qualified nationals who fled overseas in the past three decades, are looking to come back home.
This is because the greener pastures they sought abroad to earn a better living for themselves and their families are not so green again.
From all indications, the trek back home by hundreds of Trinis could be gaining momentum.
One of the things making it easy for them to return home are measures the NAR administration had put in place between 1986 and 1991 for citizens to be able to hold dual citizenship.
In the NAR days and the early 1990s, a lot of Trinis of East Indian descent sought citizenship in Canada, claiming refugee status on the grounds of political persecution.
A senior Central Statistical Office (CSO) source did not take dual citizenship into consideration as encouragement for citizens to return to T&T from homes they have made for themselves in North America and Europe.
But she said three factors would weigh heavily on the decision.
Amidst the global financial crisis, the cost of living abroad has risen astronomically since energy prices, particularly oil, started a steep upward curve. Climate change was also another factor, since winters were getting much colder.
And last, but not least, the T&T economy was booming, with plenty jobs to be had in almost every sector.
The senior CSO statistician, who did not want to be identified, confirmed what the Immigration Department had informed the Sunday Guardian—migration figures are difficult to pin down.
This is because when they fill out their immigration cards, returning residents don’t have to state whether they are returning permanently, or just for a holiday.
The statistician said when residents were about to leave T&T and they filled out their embarkation cards, most would complete the forms as though they were going on vacation.
The CSO’s next step was seeking to harness the records of the various embassies and high commissions on T&T nationals seeking to get residential status in the respective countries. But as she modestly put it:
“The processing of this information is difficult.”
During the 2009 budget debate, Public Administration Minister Kennedy Swaratsingh made it a point to emphasise that Government experienced no problems at all in getting hundreds of scholarship winners studying abroad to return home to work, after completing their degree courses.
Steady increase
And according to the CSO, which is gathering its forces to carry out a 2010 population census, the number of Trinis domiciled here has steadily been increasing.
The CSO’s 2008 T&T mid-year population count was 1,308,587 compared to 1,275,705 in 2002, growing each year in the period under review by between 0.3 to 0.5 per cent.
It was a fact that births had been exceeding deaths in T&T during the past seven years; births steady at between 13 and 14 per 1,000 persons a year and deaths at between seven and eight per 1,000 for the same period.
That would account for the population increase.
But figures sourced from the US Department of Homeland Security showed that, in general, fewer Caribbean citizens were being naturalised there.
The CSO source admitted that the figures were not a reliable yardstick to measure reverse migration, but they showed, in 2006, a total of 90,979 Caribbean citizens became naturalised US citizens, compared to a steep drop of 68,577 in 2007.
In 2005, a total of 64,672 Caribbean nationals because US citizens.
The CSO, according the source, had recognised the deficiency in acquiring accurate migration figures, and had come up with a plan to liaise with the UWI, St Augustine Social Sciences Faculty to solve the problem.
“We need the migration figures to improve the population count,” the source noted.
She added that she was confident the Government would be on the right track to cater now for an increase in nationals returning to live in T&T.
Scouting the possibilities
Former Central Bank governor, Winston Dookeran, who is Congress of the People (COP) leader, concurs that the brain drain is on the reverse.
“I think a lot of Trinis living abroad are now scouting the possibilities here.
“I have sensed a fair amount of persons in their 50s and 60s have come home to scout the situation.
“Some are trying to set up a base, either a house or a business, then going back to their place of residence to see how the situation unfolds,” said Dookeran.
He said when he served the NAR as Chaguanas MP and Finance Minister, he had been at the forefront of the thrust to push legislation through Parliament to permit for dual citizenship so expatriates could find it easier to fit back into T&T.
“I argued that when people reach 50 or 60, they would want to come back home, because they were economically independent, and they loved their country of birth,” explained Dookeran.
He said he was not sensing that younger expatriates were interested in returning at this time.
Dookeran disclosed that his contacts in the outside world had given him an estimate of some 500,000 T&T expatriates living abroad.
The World Bank Migration and Remittances Factbook 2008 released last month detailed that T&T nationals living abroad sent back home US$92 million, compared to US$54 million in 2000.
