Raphael John-Lall

Trade Min­is­ter Stephen Cadiz has said that Gov­ern­ment in­tends to use as much lo­cal goods and ser­vices as pos­si­ble as part of the last ad­min­is­tra­tion's pledge of US$5 mil­lion to Haiti.

"The funds were giv­en, but through a fund that was al­ready set up. That's through the Caribbean Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Emer­gency Fund. So that $1 mil­lion was giv­en and we've pledged an­oth­er US$ 5 mil­lion, which still has to be dis­bursed. We're seek­ing to see how much of that US$5 mil­lion could be used util­is­ing T&T's goods and ser­vices.

"It's not a con­di­tion­al­i­ty be­cause the mon­ey has al­ready been pledged, but we will be look­ing to­wards our lo­cal ser­vice providers and man­u­fac­tur­ers who can pro­vide ser­vices to the tune of the US$5 mil­lion as much as pos­si­ble. So that mon­ey, al­though it's go­ing as aid, it can still ben­e­fit our lo­cal econ­o­my," he said.

Cadiz was at yes­ter­day's week­ly post-Cab­i­net press con­fer­ence at the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, St Clair. Cadiz said a com­mit­tee of lo­cal pub­lic ser­vants will be set up to as­sist Haiti.

"Cab­i­net to­day has agreed to have a team set up where we would be work­ing with the Cari­com am­bas­sador to Haiti, for­mer Ja­maica Prime Min­is­ter PJ Pat­ter­son, and us­ing pub­lic ser­vants here in T&T who have of­fered to set the pro­gramme and struc­ture in place and start build­ing in­sti­tu­tion­al ca­pac­i­ty in Haiti. "This team will be or­gan­ised and set up and start with­in eight weeks," he said.