GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

In a scathing cri­tique of the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of in­ter­na­tion­al fi­nan­cial com­pli­ance, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo said the Eu­ro­pean Union’s (EU) black­list of non-co­op­er­a­tive ju­ris­dic­tions was far more than a "harm­less ad­min­is­tra­tive la­bel."

Speak­ing in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day, Tan­coo said for T&T, the con­se­quences have been both tan­gi­ble and dam­ag­ing.

He not­ed the black­list­ing sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly erod­ed in­vestor con­fi­dence and placed a heavy bur­den on the do­mes­tic fi­nan­cial sec­tor, adding that lo­cal busi­ness­es at­tempt­ing to con­duct trans­ac­tions with Eu­ro­pean in­sti­tu­tions faced sig­nif­i­cant hur­dles, in­clud­ing in­creased costs and rig­or­ous due dili­gence re­quire­ments that sti­fled eco­nom­ic agili­ty.

"It ex­posed us to the risk of de­fen­sive mea­sures by EU mem­ber states and dam­aged this coun­try’s in­ter­na­tion­al rep­u­ta­tion," Tan­coo stat­ed, high­light­ing the broad­er geopo­lit­i­cal risks of re­main­ing non-com­pli­ant.

He ac­cused the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion of en­gag­ing in per­for­ma­tive gov­er­nance, bring­ing "bits and pieces of poor­ly draft­ed leg­is­la­tion" to Par­lia­ment.

Tan­coo not­ed that while the then gov­ern­ment sought pub­lic ap­plause for its "ac­tiv­i­ty," the re­sults were non-ex­is­tent, adding that de­spite the leg­isla­tive noise and var­i­ous amend­ments passed, the coun­try re­mained stuck on the list, a fact he be­lieves proves that the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion's ap­proach was fun­da­men­tal­ly flawed.

"This was a na­tion­al em­bar­rass­ment that the PNM presided over," the fi­nance min­is­ter said.

He added that for nine years, this coun­try re­mained on that list, longer than most ju­ris­dic­tions orig­i­nal­ly list­ed in 2017.

Tan­coo al­so ques­tioned why the mat­ter was al­lowed to lan­guish, leav­ing the coun­try ex­posed to in­ter­na­tion­al stig­ma while oth­er na­tions moved to­ward com­pli­ance.

"The ma­jor­i­ty of the 17 orig­i­nal coun­tries list­ed, se­cured re­moval by March 2019 by tak­ing swift leg­isla­tive and ad­min­is­tra­tive ac­tion. Coun­tries such as the Cay­man Is­lands and Oman spent two years on the list be­fore meet­ing com­pli­ance stan­dards while An­tigua and Bar­bu­da was list­ed for rough­ly one year. But Mr Pres­i­dent, Trinidad and To­ba­go was kept black­list­ed for near­ly a decade," Tan­coo stat­ed.

The re­moval, con­firmed by the EU's Eco­nom­ic and Fi­nan­cial Af­fairs Coun­cil on Feb­ru­ary 17, 2026, marked a turn­ing point for the do­mes­tic econ­o­my. Ac­cord­ing to Tan­coo, the move sig­nalled re­newed glob­al con­fi­dence in the na­tion’s fi­nan­cial gov­er­nance.

The ben­e­fits are ex­pect­ed to be im­me­di­ate: strength­ened stand­ing with in­ter­na­tion­al in­vestors, im­proved ac­cess to cap­i­tal, and the re­moval of "sus­pi­cion" that pre­vi­ous­ly hin­dered trans­ac­tions with Eu­ro­pean in­sti­tu­tions.

Tan­coo fur­ther not­ed that by re­plac­ing the "harm­ful" for­mer Free Trade Zone regime with a mod­ern Spe­cial Eco­nom­ic Zone frame­work and up­grad­ing tax trans­paren­cy stan­dards, the gov­ern­ment has re­claimed its po­si­tion as a re­spon­si­ble mem­ber of the in­ter­na­tion­al fi­nan­cial com­mu­ni­ty.