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Monday, August 25, 2025

Businesses challenge Jack’s economy claim

‘Show us evidence’

by

Camille McEachnie
2334 days ago
20190404
Secretary in the Division of Finance and Economy Joel Jack.

Secretary in the Division of Finance and Economy Joel Jack.

To­ba­go stake­hold­ers are call­ing on To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly’s Fi­nance and Econ­o­my Sec­re­tary Joel Jack to pro­vide ev­i­dence that To­ba­go’s econ­o­my has grown by three per cent over the past five years.

This af­ter Jack, cit­ing da­ta from the Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice (CSO), said the econ­o­my showed growth, an un­em­ploy­ment rate of three per cent; some busi­ness­es were in­vest­ing “over $40 and $50 mil­lion on projects, head­line in­fla­tion was “2.8 per cent in Feb­ru­ary 2019” and the rate of core in­fla­tion ap­prox­i­mate­ly “2.9 per cent for the same pe­ri­od.”

Speak­ing at Wednes­day’s post-Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil me­dia brief­ing, the Fi­nance Sec­re­tary al­so said To­ba­go’s in­fla­tion rate was “1.2 per cent for Feb­ru­ary 2018-Feb­ru­ary 2019, while the na­tion­al in­fla­tion rate was 1.1 per cent. (See sto­ry be­low)

But in an im­me­di­ate re­ac­tion to Jack’s dis­clo­sure, To­ba­go Busi­ness Cham­ber chair­man Mar­tin George said the Sec­re­tary should share the in­for­ma­tion he has.

Told that Jack cit­ed da­ta from the CSO to back up his state­ment, George said da­ta alone was not enough and sec­tors of growth must be iden­ti­fied as this can of­fer “hope” to the many fail­ing busi­ness­es on the is­land.

“I would love to know which sec­tors are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing growth and where the signs of hope are...and that would be very in­ter­est­ing for all of us,” George said.

George, who is al­so a di­rec­tor of the rel­a­tive­ly new break­away fac­tion of the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion of the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, said Jack’s in­for­ma­tion is at odds with the in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed by his mem­bers.

“Where is he (Jack) get­ting his in­for­ma­tion from, as it hasn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly been the case for our mem­bers based on the feed­back we are get­ting. We will like to know where we can now fo­cus our en­er­gies,” George, an at­tor­ney at law, added.

Traders and Truck­ers As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Ho­race Ameade al­so said his mem­bers want in­for­ma­tion on ar­eas of growth in the is­land’s econ­o­my.

“They are out of touch with what is the re­al­i­ty of what is hap­pen­ing in To­ba­go...they are liv­ing in a dif­fer­ent coun­try,” Ameade told To­ba­go To­day.

Ameade’s mem­bers use the Cabo Star, the lone car­go ves­sel on the seabridge, to trans­port goods be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“Right now you can’t get pas­sage to come to To­ba­go or to go to Trinidad and re­turn and how can they say we have growth,” Ameade, a busi­ness own­er, added.

“Busi­ness­es in To­ba­go are be­ing closed down by the droves, every cor­ner that you look you see ‘For rent’ signs, yet they are say­ing growth is three per cent.

“You try to see some of the As­sem­bly­men to ex­plain what is hap­pen­ing and you can’t see some of them for a year.”


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