RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

The Gov­ern­ment’s move to in­crease fines, cus­toms du­ties and busi­ness-re­lat­ed levies has drawn mixed re­ac­tions from the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, with stake­hold­ers large­ly ac­knowl­edg­ing the need for rev­enue gen­er­a­tion and road dis­ci­pline, but warn­ing that poor com­mu­ni­ca­tion and weak reg­u­la­to­ry over­sight could un­der­mine pub­lic trust and eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce pres­i­dent Bal­dath Ma­haraj said the in­creased cus­toms and port-re­lat­ed fees were rel­a­tive­ly nom­i­nal when viewed against the over­all val­ue of im­port­ed goods.

“Some con­tain­ers cost more than $100,000, so a small sur­charge re­al­ly will be nei­ther here nor there,” Ma­haraj said, adding that with de­clin­ing en­er­gy rev­enues, the Gov­ern­ment must seek al­ter­na­tive rev­enue streams.

He said the cham­ber ful­ly sup­ports stricter penal­ties for road traf­fic vi­o­la­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly dri­ving with­out in­sur­ance.

“We have got­ten way too re­laxed as it re­lates to the road, the way we dri­ve, and the doc­u­men­ta­tion that we need to have.”

How­ev­er, Ma­haraj agreed that the mea­sures should have been com­mu­ni­cat­ed more ef­fec­tive­ly.

“It should have been dis­cussed and im­ple­ment­ed with ad­e­quate no­tice, rather than just hav­ing it as a le­gal no­tice, and then we have to read about it in the news­pa­pers.”

On the new land­lord sur­charge, Ma­haraj said while some in­creas­es may oc­cur, es­pe­cial­ly on the com­mer­cial side, com­pe­ti­tion in the rental mar­ket could lim­it sharp rent hikes. “Some land­lords will ab­sorb some of the cost and some­what pass it on grad­u­al­ly.”

He al­so stressed that port ef­fi­cien­cy must im­prove if fees are ris­ing, cit­ing de­lays, lim­it­ed scan­ners, and over­time prac­tices.

“It has to be a joint ef­fort be­tween the port and Cus­toms to make them a lot more ef­fi­cient,” he said.

Greater San Fer­nan­do Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce pres­i­dent Ki­ran Singh echoed sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments, say­ing the in­creased tax­es and fees were un­like­ly to have a ma­jor im­me­di­ate im­pact on busi­ness­es.

“The fees were min­i­mal,” Singh said, not­ing that land­lords, in par­tic­u­lar, may have to ab­sorb some of the costs.

“The econ­o­my is just not as buoy­ant as it used to be, and land­lords will have to take a cut in their prof­it.”

Singh added that while some land­lords may re­sist, for­mal reg­is­tra­tion could ul­ti­mate­ly be ben­e­fi­cial.

“Oth­er coun­tries and mod­ern cities are im­ple­ment­ing these things. It might be a pos­i­tive thing to have a reg­istry of land­lords,” he said, point­ing to the high vol­ume of rental dis­putes cur­rent­ly clog­ging the court sys­tem.

De­spite dif­fer­ing views, the two agreed that stronger gov­er­nance, bet­ter com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and fair en­force­ment would be crit­i­cal to en­sur­ing the new mea­sures achieve their in­tend­ed goals with­out plac­ing un­due strain on cit­i­zens and busi­ness­es alike.