The much-an­tic­i­pat­ed tourism fund led by the Min­istry of Trade to help To­ba­go's cash-strapped busi­ness­es would be rolled out next week, says Trade Min­is­ter Stephen Cadiz. On June 1, the Gov­ern­ment an­nounced that a $250 mil­lion tourism fund was ap­proved to pro­vide re­sources for two ma­jor ar­eas af­fect­ing busi­ness­es on the is­land, name­ly debt re­struc­tur­ing for tourism-re­lat­ed busi­ness­es and up­grade of ho­tels. "Part of the fund would be rolled out next week Wednes­day in To­ba­go where the cri­te­ria would be out­lined. Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance Dr Del­mon Bak­er would meet with oth­er stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing To­ba­go Cham­ber, the Trade Min­istry, Bankers As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T, he said, in a tele­phone in­ter­view on Mon­day. Cadiz said the Gov­ern­ment had on­go­ing talks with stake­hold­ers as re­cent as last week. "We (Trade, Fi­nance, To­ba­go Cham­ber) are work­ing with the Bankers As­so­ci­a­tion to de­ter­mine the cri­te­ria for this ini­tia­tive." He ex­plained the cri­te­ria in­cludes the el­i­gi­bil­i­ty of the pro­gramme, the length of time, how could the or­gan­i­sa­tion ex­it from it and the do's and don'ts of the agree­ment. "We must en­sure they do not take ad­van­tage of it," Cadiz said.

Cash-strapped ho­tels

Asked what hap­pens if a ho­tel or busi­ness does not meet the cri­te­ria, but needs as­sis­tance, Cadiz said, "Hard­ly like­ly we would turn away any­one. It would be done on a case by case ba­sis." Elab­o­rat­ing, he said the ini­tia­tive would not in­volve a cash out­lay. For ex­am­ple, if the com­pa­ny used its prop­er­ty as col­lat­er­al and did not main­tain its val­ue over the years, we would look to "sure up" (in­crease) the col­lat­er­al. This ini­tia­tive, he said, is man­aged by the Gov­ern­ment through the Ex­port and Im­port Bank of T&T (Ex­im Bank) that pos­sess­es the re­quired ex­per­tise and ex­pe­ri­ence. David Wong, chair­man of the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion of the T&T Cham­ber of Com­merce, said in or­der for To­ba­go's tourism to thrive again, there must be a pri­ma­ry fo­cus on tourism. He said To­ba­go's an­nu­al tourist ar­rivals are un­der 20,000.

Wong said ho­tels and restau­rants, in­clud­ing Arnos Vale Ho­tel shut its doors be­cause it was un­able to sur­vive. In a tele­phone in­ter­view on Mon­day, Wong said the cham­ber has been lob­by­ing the Gov­ern­ment for more a year to as­sist the in­dus­try. "We ap­proached the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, but it was un­able to pro­vide any guar­an­tee due to con­straints." He said pol­i­tics is play­ing a part of what is hap­pen­ing in To­ba­go, but the politi­cians must be aware of the im­pact their de­ci­sions would have on cit­i­zens' lives. Wong said he is not yet privy to the cri­te­ria of the $250 mil­lion tourism fund, but plans to at­tend next week's stake­hold­ers' meet­ing. Richard Young and Lar­ry Howai, pres­i­dent and vice pres­i­dent of the Bankers As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T, re­spec­tive­ly, could not be reached as they were out of the coun­try.