Rapheal John-Lall

As Gov­ern­ment grap­ples with re­duced rev­enues as a re­sult of low­er en­er­gy prices, it has to de­cide what role it will play in the econ­o­my, says Ravi Suryade­vara, pres­i­dent of the Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce of T&T (Am­ChamTT). He said while Gov­ern­ment has tra­di­tion­al­ly played a dom­i­nant role in de­vel­op­ment, Am­ChamTT would pre­fer them in the role of reg­u­la­tor, al­low­ing busi­ness­es to cre­ate wealth.

Suryade­vara said T&T is not like­ly to re­turn to the rev­enue streams of the past any­time soon and the cur­rent pe­ri­od should be seen as a time of ad­just­ment rather than re­ces­sion.

"We need to heed what the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund (IMF) re­cent­ly said about the econ­o­my. There is sta­bil­i­ty now but we need to make the dif­fi­cult de­ci­sions now or the sit­u­a­tion will get worse," he warned.

There will be di­vest­ment of some state as­sets to meet the deficits, he added.

"Let the Gov­ern­ment do that and fo­cus more on over­sight of the econ­o­my and com­pli­ance–in oth­er words, the role of a reg­u­la­tor. Gov­ern­ment needs to be less of an op­er­a­tor in the econ­o­my and pro­vide more over­sight," Suryade­vara said.

He said when Arcelor­Mit­tal en­tered T&T they should have list­ed on the Stock Ex­change where they could have been reg­u­lat­ed.

The Am­ChamTT pres­i­dent said the group wait­ing to see how the Gov­ern­ment deasl with the fu­el sub­sidy in Fri­day's mid-year bud­get re­view but has al­ways ad­vo­cat­ed for its grad­ual re­moval.

He urged the Gov­ern­ment to make all the po­ten­tial­ly painful de­ci­sions now.

"Eco­nom­ic growth is im­por­tant for pover­ty al­le­vi­a­tion. Grow­ing debt on­ly hurts growth as there is less dis­pos­able in­come for the coun­try to do im­por­tant things," Suryade­vara said.