Loyse Vin­cent

The To­ba­go Busi­ness Cham­ber has called for the re­moval of Val­ue Added Tax (VAT) on To­ba­go goods.

“If the 12.5 per cent VAT is re­moved it will en­cour­age greater in­vest­ment in To­ba­go, per­sons will come and set up busi­ness­es or come to re­tire,” Mar­tin George, Head of the To­ba­go Busi­ness Cham­ber said in an au­dio re­ply to the 2019/2020 bud­get.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion’s head gave mixed re­views on the bud­get state­ment pre­sent­ed by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert on Mon­day.

He ap­plaud­ed the in­crease in wages for CEPEP and URP work­ers but de­cried in­ac­tion on the For­eign In­vest­ment Act. The act re­stricts the acreage of land, the num­ber of shares, deben­tures and di­rec­tor­ship’s non-na­tion­als can hold.

George said he was “dis­ap­point­ed to see the bulk of To­ba­go’s al­lo­ca­tion go to­wards gra­tu­itous spend­ing” as “90 per cent” of the al­lo­ca­tion to To­ba­go, went to re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture.

‘(This) leaves very lit­tle left for cap­i­tal ex­pen­di­ture, in­fra­struc­tur­al de­vel­op­ment and in­vest­ment in build­ing up the busi­ness which will build the ca­pac­i­ty of To­ba­go,” George said.

He said the Gov­ern­ment should place greater em­pha­sis on cap­i­tal ex­pen­di­ture, there­by al­low­ing the pri­vate sec­tor to grow and cre­ate more jobs.

He said he was hap­py to see an in­crease in the min­i­mum wage and an in­crease in salaries for CEPEP and URP em­ploy­ees by 15 per cent.

He ap­plaud­ed sev­er­al na­tion­al ini­tia­tives, such as day­care fa­cil­i­ties for sin­gle moth­ers and the con­struc­tion of 6,000 new homes.

George said he hoped To­bag­o­ni­ans are part of the hous­ing ini­tia­tive.

He was al­so pleased about the Gov­ern­ment’s plan to build a new hos­pi­tal in Rox­bor­ough.

How­ev­er, he called on Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment to ad­dress the chal­lenges at the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

He was crit­i­cal of Gov­ern­ment’s in­ac­tion on the For­eign In­vest­ment Act for To­ba­go.

“We are call­ing up­on the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance we are call­ing up­on the THA to lob­by the Gov­ern­ment to have that act re­pealed. With that act re­pealed you will have an in­flow of in­vest­ment in­to the is­land, it’s al­so go­ing to as­sist with the for­eign in­vest­ment prob­lem.”

As it re­lates to in­ter­is­land trav­el, he called for bet­ter man­age­ment of the air and sea bridges.

“Make that tourism ex­pe­ri­ence be­gin from the time you en­ter the port. They need to pro­vide prop­er wifi. They need to pro­vide prop­er restau­rants, prop­er fa­cil­i­ties so that peo­ple can re­lax while they are await­ing their fer­ries,” the cham­ber head said.