Yvonne Ba­boolal

It is un­fair to ex­pect any new gov­ern­ment to step in­to pow­er and not as­sess the sit­u­a­tion, says Bil­ly Ali, pres­i­dent of the Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce. Busi­ness­es in Ch­agua­nas are not do­ing good, but Ali has faith in the re­silien­cy of the sec­tor, no mat­ter the eco­nom­ic sce­nario. And he has a lot of op­ti­mism in the new gov­ern­ment.

Ali be­lieves that af­ter new State boards are ap­point­ed, the elec­torate will start to see a lit­tle rise in Gov­ern­ment spend­ing. (Sev­er­al State boards are now in lim­bo be­cause of the change in ad­min­is­tra­tion.) He fur­ther added, "Gov­ern­ment needs time to re­assess and repri­ori­tise. "But I am ex­treme­ly op­ti­mistic about the fu­ture of the econ­o­my and the coun­try based on our present lead­ers."

Ali point­ed to the state of the con­struc­tion sec­tor as a good in­di­ca­tor of the state of things. "Many con­trac­tors are af­fect­ed by lack of gov­ern­ment spend­ing and the con­struc­tion sec­tor is one of the largest em­ploy­ers of dai­ly paid work­ers. "As long as they are em­ployed, they spend mon­ey." Ali said if busi­ness­es are not see­ing this in­come, banks are not go­ing to lend mon­ey. "Some busi­ness­es may make a con­scious de­ci­sion not to con­tin­ue bor­row­ing be­cause of their un­cer­tain­ty about the state of the econ­o­my. "But there are some who would like to bor­row but based on their fi­nan­cial po­si­tion, the bank would not lend them mon­ey."

Con­trac­tors suf­fer­ing but busi­ness­es re­silient

Asked how bad busi­ness was in Ch­agua­nas, he replied, "For some it's very bad. It all de­pends on the sec­tor. "Con­trac­tors are suf­fer­ing and they are the biggest pur­chasers of goods and ser­vices. "This af­fects the man­u­fac­ters of ce­ment, blocks and steel, for in­stance." But Ali chose to be op­ti­mistic. "Busi­ness­es are re­silient," he in­sist­ed. "Gov­ern­ments come and go but com­pa­nies don't just pack up and go out of busi­ness. "I have been through enough to un­der­stand the cy­cle. We know it's just a mat­ter of time for the sit­u­a­tion to get bet­ter. "We don't need to think gloom and doom."

No stu­mu­la­tion from Govt

Ibrahim Ali, pres­i­dent of the San Juan Cham­ber of Com­merce was not so op­ti­mistic, how­ev­er. "When the Gov­ern­ment is not spend­ing, the econ­o­my re­tracts. "The Gov­ern­ment has to take the ini­tia­tive to stim­u­late the econ­o­my, the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor and small busi­ness­es. "But we have no stim­u­la­tion from the Gov­ern­ment." Ali said the San Juan busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty was very cau­tious about spend­ing mon­ey right now. "All busi­ness­es are down right now, from small to large. "There is no plan, no inia­tive com­ing from the Gov­ern­ment to cause busi­ness to get in­to some­thing new. "The longer they take, the longer the econ­o­my will take to re­vive."

Tu­na­puna busi­ness­es at a stand­still

Most busi­ness­es in Tu­na­puna have been cau­tious about how they are spend­ing and bor­row­ing, pres­i­dent of the Tu­na­puna Cham­ber of Com­merce, Pe­ter Kan­hai, dis­closed. "Giv­en the at­mos­phere of the econ­o­my, busi­ness is al­most at a stand­still," he said. "In­fla­tion is cost­ing busi­ness­es more to keep their shelves stocked." He blames it in the re­cent glob­al fi­nan­cial crunch, drought and flood­ing in T&T and the change in gov­ern­ment. "We're wait­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to give some kind of sig­nal in which di­rec­tion they are go­ing eco­nom­i­cal­ly," Kan­hai said. "We told our MP and the Fi­nance Min­is­ter, Win­ston Dook­er­an, at a re­cent fo­rum, that the Gov­ern­ment needs to put out some sort of stim­u­lus to kick­start the econ­o­my.

"We're ex­pect­ing to hear some­thing in the forth­com­ing bud­get." Kan­hai said crime in the Tu­na­puna area has not sub­sided in any sig­nif­i­cant way ei­ther and this is al­so af­fect­ing the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty in the area. "Busi­ness peo­ple and con­sumers con­tin­ue to be robbed and at­tacked. "We want to see some­thing from the new ad­min­is­tra­tion in deal­ing with crime."

Busi­ness in Cou­va slow

Busi­ness is Cou­va is al­so very slow right now, Nal Ram­s­ingh, Pres­i­dent of the Cou­va/Point Lisas Cham­ber of Com­merce, re­port­ed. "Busi­ness is slow. Con­sumers are very cau­tious about spend­ing. No­body is in­vest­ing. "I be­lieve peo­ple are wait­ing on the bud­get to hear in which di­rec­tion the Gov­ern­ment is go­ing." He said lo­cal veg­etable pro­duce is scarce and he is notic­ing for­eign toma­toes, car­rots, onions and oth­er pro­duce in veg­etable stalls.

Ram­s­ingh said the Gov­ern­ment was do­ing the right thing in as­sess­ing the sit­u­a­tion be­fore spend­ing.