Business leaders urge vigilance amid regional tensions

Rad­hi­ca De­Sil­va

As geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions es­ca­late across the Caribbean, busi­ness lead­ers are urg­ing vig­i­lance, with a call for com­pa­nies and em­ploy­ees to stay alert and proac­tive in the months ahead. The mes­sage came from Caribbean Safe­ty Prod­ucts Lim­it­ed CEO Shaun Manocha, who ad­dressed staff dur­ing the com­pa­ny’s an­nu­al Christ­mas din­ner and awards cer­e­mo­ny at the Roy­al Ho­tel in San Fer­nan­do.

Manocha said the re­gion is fac­ing in­creas­ing un­cer­tain­ty and point­ed to ris­ing fric­tion be­tween Venezuela and the Unit­ed States and the po­ten­tial im­pli­ca­tions for Trinidad and To­ba­go, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the en­er­gy sec­tor.

“Our lit­tle is­land is known for oil and gas, where our econ­o­my is re­liant on our nat­ur­al gas and oil re­sources,” he told the gath­er­ing, while ref­er­enc­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s po­si­tion as a ma­jor methanol ex­porter and the strate­gic im­por­tance of the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate.

He warned that the pos­si­bil­i­ty of “civ­il un­rest” could not be dis­missed and urged em­ploy­ees to place safe­ty at the cen­tre of their op­er­a­tions. “While we con­tin­ue to re­main hope­ful for peace and sta­bil­i­ty with­in our re­gion, we must al­so be proac­tive and pre­pared,” he said.

Manocha added that the com­pa­ny is ac­tive­ly bol­ster­ing its safe­ty sys­tems. “We are re­view­ing and strength­en­ing our in­ter­nal safe­ty mea­sures to pro­tect you, our teams, and the op­er­a­tions en­trust­ed to us. Your wel­fare is al­ways a pri­or­i­ty.”

He en­cour­aged se­cu­ri­ty and HSE per­son­nel to main­tain vig­i­lance. “The work we do plays a vi­tal role in safe­guard­ing our clients, our com­mu­ni­ties, and most im­por­tant­ly, our fam­i­lies,” he said.

Manocha ac­knowl­edged the con­tri­bu­tions of em­ploy­ees and recog­nised the HSE spe­cial­ists and the com­pa­ny’s se­cu­ri­ty man­age­ment team, known as Delta Force. He said many of them have ad­vanced in their roles and tak­en on high­er re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.

Manocha ex­pressed con­fi­dence that the com­pa­ny would nav­i­gate the com­ing year with the same lev­el of com­mit­ment.