An­tho­ny Wil­son and
An­drea Perez-Sobers

CEO of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion, Dr Mahin­dra Ramdeen, yes­ter­day con­firmed that the ANSA McAL Group and Trinidad Ce­ment Ltd (TCL) had with­drawn from mem­ber­ship in the as­so­ci­a­tion.

Ramdeen said the ANSA McAL Group with­draw­al let­ter was dat­ed Jan­u­ary 26, while the TCL let­ter of with­draw­al was dat­ed yes­ter­day. TCL chair­man David In­gle­field did not re­spond to sev­er­al at­tempts by Guardian Me­dia to get a com­ment from him on the group’s with­draw­al from the TTMA.

In its let­ter, ANSA McAL said it was with­draw­ing all of the group’s man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pa­nies from the TTMA as a re­sult of “deep con­cern re­gard­ing the As­so­ci­a­tion’s re­cent con­duct, rep­re­sen­ta­tion, and ef­fec­tive­ness in ad­vo­cat­ing for the in­ter­ests of its mem­ber­ship, par­tic­u­lar­ly in mat­ters of crit­i­cal na­tion­al and eco­nom­ic im­por­tance.”

The group said it was pro­found­ly con­cerned by the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny’s (NGC) stat­ed in­tent to in­crease nat­ur­al gas prices and the broad­er pol­i­cy di­rec­tion this sig­nals. “Such in­creas­es will have a di­rect and dam­ag­ing im­pact on man­u­fac­tur­ing and pro­duc­tion costs, re­duce the com­pet­i­tive­ness of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ex­ports, place pres­sure on con­sumer prices, cre­ate fur­ther chal­lenges in se­cur­ing crit­i­cal for­eign ex­change to fund present op­er­a­tions and in­evitably lead to re­duced in­vest­ment, job loss­es, and low­er tax rev­enues to the State. The cu­mu­la­tive ef­fect will be harm­ful not on­ly to busi­ness­es, but to the na­tion­al econ­o­my on a whole,” said the ANSA McAL let­ter.

ANSA McAL said that equal­ly trou­bling was the process by which the TTMA en­gaged the is­sue of the nat­ur­al gas price hike.

The group said as one of the largest man­u­fac­tur­ing groups in the coun­try and as the sin­gle largest mem­ber in the light in­dus­tri­al and com­mer­cial (LIC) cat­e­go­ry, “ANSA McAL was not con­sult­ed by the TTMA pri­or to its en­gage­ment with NGC and the Gov­ern­ment.

“More broad­ly, there ap­pears to have been no struc­tured, trans­par­ent or open con­sul­ta­tion process with the wider mem­ber­ship.”

The with­draw­al let­ter stat­ed that ef­fec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion re­quires in­clu­sive di­a­logue, co­or­di­nat­ed po­si­tions and clear lead­er­ship, all of which were ab­sent.

“Apart from a gen­er­al broad­cast­ed mes­sage out­lin­ing the out­come of a closed-door meet­ing, there have been no fur­ther sig­nals of any on­go­ing ef­forts or con­tin­ued lob­by against these pro­posed in­creas­es, leav­ing the Group with­out any ben­e­fit to be­ing a part of the TTMA,” said the group.

The com­pa­ny said it was al­so con­cerned at the TTMA’s “mut­ed and de­layed re­sponse” to the Gov­ern­ment’s in­tro­duc­tion of in­creased ex­cise tax­es with­out cor­re­spond­ing ad­just­ments to im­port du­ties on com­pet­ing (for­eign) goods, a pol­i­cy ap­proach that again dis­ad­van­tages lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers and un­der­mines do­mes­tic pro­duc­tion.”

ANSA McAL said in these cir­cum­stances, it “no longer has con­fi­dence that the TTMA is pro­vid­ing the lev­el of lead­er­ship, ad­vo­ca­cy, con­sul­ta­tion, or strate­gic rep­re­sen­ta­tion re­quired to pro­tect the in­ter­ests of its mem­bers or the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor.”

The group said that af­ter care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion, it be­lieved its with­draw­al from the TTMA to be a nec­es­sary and ap­pro­pri­ate step at this junc­ture.

“We re­main ful­ly com­mit­ted to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment, re­spon­si­ble cor­po­rate cit­i­zen­ship, con­struc­tive en­gage­ment with gov­ern­ment and stake­hold­ers, and the ad­vance­ment of a com­pet­i­tive, sus­tain­able man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor in Trinidad and To­ba­go. How­ev­er, we be­lieve that such ob­jec­tives re­quire rep­re­sen­ta­tion struc­tures that are con­sul­ta­tive, proac­tive, prin­ci­pled, and ef­fec­tive,” said the group.

On Thurs­day, ANSA McAL said it felt it had been placed un­der “com­mer­cial duress” by NGC, which im­posed a 77 per cent in­crease in the price of nat­ur­al gas to the group.

Speak­ing yes­ter­day, Ramdeen em­pha­sised that the TTMA’s more than 750 mem­bers re­mained ac­tive­ly en­gaged with the as­so­ci­a­tion and that its man­date re­mains un­changed.