Just over a week af­ter To­ba­go’s Car­ni­val, there are wor­ry­ing signs that the event has done lit­tle to move the nee­dle in the To­ba­go busi­ness sec­tor.

To­ba­go busi­ness­woman Di­ane Hadad is con­cerned that this event, which was cre­at­ed to bring ad­di­tion­al fi­nan­cial ac­tiv­i­ty to the is­land, has sim­ply un­der­lined how stag­nant the To­ba­go econ­o­my has be­come.

“Gen­er­al­ly the is­land has been at a stale­mate for the last four years, and even pri­or how­ev­er, the ad­min­is­tra­tion led by Far­ley Au­gus­tine has not been able to stim­u­late or even af­fect an econ­o­my, which I want to imag­ine, prob­a­bly has to do with some mea­sure of the in­abil­i­ty to have the eco­nom­ic un­der­stand­ing of run­ning an is­land,” Hadad told the Busi­ness Guardian in a phone in­ter­view.

“I think that we prob­a­bly have an is­sue there, be­cause it’s quite in­ter­est­ing that af­ter we came out of a PNM led, I would want to call a plum­met over their tenure,” she said, “But it seems that even more, lack of knowl­edge, lack of un­der­stand­ing of and lack of in­tel­lect of eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty and stim­u­lat­ing an is­land’s econ­o­my. So I think we have a big chal­lenge there.”

Hadad said there were signs of im­prove­ment dur­ing the Car­ni­val from an ex­e­cu­tion and at­ten­dance stand­point, but most who came for Car­ni­val large­ly on­ly spent mon­ey in Car­ni­val-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ties.

“The Car­ni­val did not stim­u­late or bring that mag­ni­tude of in­vest­ment. It was a good event from what I saw. It was a lot bet­ter than last year, which was a dis­as­ter, al­though peo­ple boast­ed about it,” she said, “But this year was a much bet­ter show than last year. We had a lot more, it was clear, a lot more Trinidad in­put, a lot more Trinidad par­tic­i­pa­tion. It was clear­ly a New York-ian (pres­ence) here. There were a few peo­ple from Ger­many, etc. But I think it’s con­densed in­to the car­ni­val of it­self, the spend.”

Alarm­ing­ly, she added, there were in­di­ca­tors that many peo­ple from Trinidad who at­tend­ed hard­ly had the spend­ing pow­er to do more than be present.

Hadad said, “They were speak­ing their sto­ries of how they slept in Pi­geon Point, or didn’t have mon­ey to buy beers, who was try­ing to fetch the mon­ey. So, there­fore, even the Trinida­di­ans who came at some stage, there was a sec­tion of peo­ple who came but didn’t re­al­ly have mon­ey to spend, but they want­ed to be in the event.”

She said this was not a great sign head­ing in­to the Christ­mas pe­ri­od, which typ­i­cal­ly is a busy pe­ri­od for the sec­tor. In­deed, she was con­cerned that the event may have even erod­ed po­ten­tial re­turns for that fes­tive sea­son.

To fur­ther un­der­line the se­ri­ous state of busi­ness in To­ba­go, news broke ear­li­er this week that the long-trou­bled Movi­eTowne To­ba­go was set to fi­nal­ly close its doors for good.

“We have giv­en it a good run for many years and it just doesn’t seem to be able to catch on, what­ev­er the rea­sons be­ing but we did try every­thing that we could to try and get the To­bag­on­ian peo­ple and busi­ness to come but it hasn’t re­al­ly im­proved and it got even worse af­ter COVID,” Movi­eTowne own­er Derek Chin told the Busi­ness Guardian in the phone in­ter­view on Tues­day.

Chin not­ed the To­ba­go cin­e­ma at Low­lands nev­er man­aged to turn a prof­it since open­ing, and the sit­u­a­tion had on­ly wors­ened since COVID, as stream­ing plat­forms had eat­en sig­nif­i­cant­ly in­to re­turn movie the­atres would have seen.

“But the whole in­dus­try has changed, as you know, peo­ple have oth­er things to do in terms of watch­ing stream­ing and the box and so on and so forth. So it’s not ap­peal­ing as be­fore, go­ing to cin­e­ma,” said Chin, “It has al­ways been at best a break-even sit­u­a­tion, but we kept try­ing our best, be­ing pa­tri­ot­ic. It ac­tu­al­ly was the sec­ond movie Towne to be built, just to show you where we put it in terms of im­por­tance. But it nev­er re­al­ly took off. “

But Hadad, her­self a for­mer ten­ant at the Gulf City Low­lands Mall, ex­plained that the mul­ti­plex’s strug­gles was a by-prod­uct of the lim­it­ed eco­nom­ic growth on the is­land for some time.

“I my­self was a ten­ant at that mall for 20 years, and would have de­cid­ed dur­ing COVID; I had a cig­ar and liquor store that I need­ed to close. I could not mind that ba­by any­more. And so I do un­der­stand Mr Chin’s po­si­tion. We all had good dreams of that mall do­ing well for the is­land in terms of up­grad­ing the ex­pec­ta­tion and liv­ing stan­dard of a To­bag­on­ian. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, it has been a see­saw, even for the own­ers and in­vestors. It’s very clear. You see stores open and clos­ing,” she said.

“I do know that he would have been strug­gling to get peo­ple out there to come out and spend. It’s about shar­ing time and space to­geth­er. But there’s a cost to all of it. When you go Movi­eTowne, you want to be able to buy your chick­en and chips. I re­mem­ber we would have tak­en her when my daugh­ter was small, there with her school friends for birth­day par­ties. They go to the movie, and then they all come out and eat the fries and nuggets, and what­ev­er af­ter. And, you know, use the en­vi­ron­ment to cre­ate the cel­e­bra­tion al­so. But un­for­tu­nate­ly, peo­ple can’t af­ford those things,” Hadad said.

Some reg­u­lar Movi­eTowne To­ba­go cus­tomers lament­ed the clo­sure, not­ing that it fur­ther lim­it­ed the op­tions on the is­land.

“I’m re­al­ly dis­ap­point­ed,” said Keisha Thomas, a Scar­bor­ough res­i­dent who vis­it­ed the com­plex week­ly with her chil­dren, “It was one of the few places you could take your fam­i­ly for a night out with­out leav­ing the is­land. To­ba­go al­ready doesn’t have much to do, and now we’re los­ing this too.” 

Uni­ver­si­ty stu­dent Anya Roberts said Movi­eTowne was part of her so­cial life. “It was a safe, fun space for young peo­ple and some­where to go on a Fri­day night,” she said.

On Tues­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar paid her first of­fi­cial vis­it to To­ba­go since be­ing elect­ed as Prime Min­is­ter in April. Chair­man of the To­ba­go arm of the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try of Com­merce was hope­ful the vis­it would al­low her to hear the con­cerns of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty on the is­land. The Movi­eTowne clo­sure, he felt, was a clear sign that some­thing need­ed to be done.

“Busi­ness is very slug­gish on the is­land and we’re hop­ing for that new thrust com­ing for­ward. We wel­come the pres­ence of the Prime Min­is­ter here to see for her­self what’s hap­pen­ing in the space and meet­ing with the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty is very, very fun­da­men­tal in do­ing so,” he said, “So that not on­ly does the THA tell her what’s hap­pen­ing, the politi­cian, but the busi­ness peo­ple in­di­cate to her what’s re­al­ly hap­pen­ing in the space. And it’s crit­i­cal that she and her Cab­i­net un­der­stands what’s hap­pen­ing in To­ba­go. We have been strug­gling for some time and this is just ev­i­dence there.”

Williams said there were like­ly more clo­sures to come on the is­land.