Now entering its fifth year, this Seminar is held in PoS at least once a month and usually twice or thrice in the run up to the Annual Budget in October.

The seminar attempts to generate ongoing discussion among those planners, policy makers, analysts, problem solvers and problem avoiders who are willing to share their expertise and minded to develop a cogent view of the national management challenge.

The main purpose is to bring together a group prepared to look at the situation squarely and to be guided by hard data, even if this means a little quarrelling and involves significant differences of objectives and approaches. Our real hope is that there will emerge what Carol Keller calls “a community of discourse.”

After repeated efforts by Trinidad and Tobago to undertake a more systematic management of our affairs, many have come to appreciate the real difference between planning and not planning. The great virtue of planning is that it prepares you for those improvisations that cannot be escaped since very little of what you would have projected will ever come to pass.