Business community presses Govt for results-driven action

GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­[email protected]

Ahead of the Mid-Year Bud­get Re­view, T&T’s pri­vate sec­tor is is­su­ing a co­or­di­nat­ed call for the Gov­ern­ment to move be­yond pol­i­cy in­ten­tions and de­liv­er mea­sur­able re­sults, as con­cerns grow over slug­gish eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty, per­sis­tent struc­tur­al bot­tle­necks and de­clin­ing busi­ness con­fi­dence.

The Greater Tu­na­puna Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (GT­CIC), the Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Busi­ness Cham­bers (CR­BC), rep­re­sent­ed by chief strat­e­gy of­fi­cer Ang­ie Jairam, the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, and To­ba­go busi­ness­woman Di­ane Hadad have all iden­ti­fied ur­gent pri­or­i­ty ar­eas.

Lead­ing the call on di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, Hadad warned that the coun­try can no longer af­ford to de­lay a shift away from en­er­gy de­pen­dence, urg­ing tan­gi­ble com­mit­ments backed by fund­ing.

“I would like to see Gov­ern­ment re­al­ly show us the in­ten­tion for di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion by putting a lot more ef­fort and fund­ing in­to the sec­tors for tourism, agri­cul­ture, and of course, man­u­fac­tur­ing… so that our de­pen­den­cy does not fail us again,” she said.

That con­cern was echoed by the GT­CIC, which de­scribed the mid-year re­view as “an im­por­tant op­por­tu­ni­ty to as­sess eco­nom­ic per­for­mance, strength­en fis­cal dis­ci­pline, and re­align pri­or­i­ties,” stress­ing that “eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion and pri­vate sec­tor de­vel­op­ment must re­main cen­tral to na­tion­al pol­i­cy.”

The TT Cham­ber re­in­forced this po­si­tion, not­ing that many of its mem­bers re­main un­der pres­sure de­spite mod­est gains in some sec­tors. In its me­dia re­lease, the TT Cham­ber said “mem­bers con­tin­ue to ex­press con­cern about the pace of eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty and the chal­lenges busi­ness­es face in main­tain­ing com­pet­i­tive­ness, man­ag­ing cash flow, and plan­ning for growth,” warn­ing that un­re­solved is­sues con­tin­ue to weigh heav­i­ly on in­vest­ment and job cre­ation.

Among the most press­ing of those is­sues is the long­stand­ing de­lay in VAT re­funds and Gov­ern­ment ar­rears.

The TT Cham­ber said, “Non-pay­ment of VAT re­funds con­tin­ues to se­vere­ly con­strain the cash flow of busi­ness­es, par­tic­u­lar­ly SMEs, many of which re­ly on these funds as crit­i­cal work­ing cap­i­tal.”

At the same time, pri­vate sec­tor lead­ers are de­mand­ing greater clar­i­ty and ac­count­abil­i­ty in Gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy ex­e­cu­tion. Jairam made it clear that pa­tience is wear­ing thin, stat­ing that “the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty will be look­ing for mea­sur­able ac­tions, clear time­lines, and tan­gi­ble re­sults in key ar­eas that im­pact eco­nom­ic growth and busi­ness con­fi­dence.” She em­pha­sised that while busi­ness­es recog­nise the chal­lenges the Gov­ern­ment faces, “the fo­cus now is not on­ly on pol­i­cy di­rec­tion, but on im­ple­men­ta­tion and re­sults.”

The TT Cham­ber not­ed that “ad­min­is­tra­tive de­lays, lengthy ap­proval process­es, reg­u­la­to­ry in­ef­fi­cien­cies… re­main ma­jor bar­ri­ers to growth,” adding that busi­ness­es fre­quent­ly en­counter dif­fi­cul­ties “ob­tain­ing per­mits, se­cur­ing ap­provals, clear­ing goods through the port, or nav­i­gat­ing gov­ern­ment process­es.” It warned that these in­ef­fi­cien­cies “in­crease costs and re­duce com­pet­i­tive­ness.”

The GT­CIC al­so called for im­prove­ments, urg­ing Gov­ern­ment to ac­cel­er­ate dig­i­tal ser­vices and re­duce red tape.

It al­so point­ed to the on­go­ing for­eign ex­change is­sue, stat­ing that “busi­ness­es con­tin­ue to face chal­lenges ac­cess­ing for­eign cur­ren­cy, which af­fects im­ports, in­vest­ment de­ci­sions, and com­pet­i­tive­ness.”

Stake­hold­ers said crime con­tin­ues to cast a long shad­ow over the busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment. The GT­CIC said that “ris­ing crime im­pos­es sig­nif­i­cant costs on busi­ness­es, dis­cour­ages in­vest­ment, and un­der­mines pub­lic con­fi­dence,” call­ing for “in­creased in­vest­ment in in­tel­li­gence-led polic­ing, tech­nol­o­gy, and com­mu­ni­ty-based crime pre­ven­tion ini­tia­tives.”

Hadad was even more di­rect, de­scrib­ing crime as a per­sis­tent “plague” and sug­gest­ing im­me­di­ate in­ter­ven­tions.

“The crime sit­u­a­tion prob­a­bly needs, at this stage joint pa­trols be­tween the po­lice and the army… be­cause that same is­sue seems to be plagu­ing us,” she said, with Jairam adding that “strength­en­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty” must be treat­ed as a core pri­or­i­ty to safe­guard eco­nom­ic growth.

The TT Cham­ber al­so tied crime di­rect­ly to eco­nom­ic per­for­mance, stat­ing that it “con­tin­ues to af­fect busi­ness pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, in­crease op­er­at­ing and se­cu­ri­ty costs, dis­rupt in­vest­ment de­ci­sions, and un­der­mine over­all eco­nom­ic con­fi­dence.”