GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Crime is not just a so­cial ill; it is an eco­nom­ic ad­ver­sary that erodes the very foun­da­tion of the coun­try's pros­per­i­ty, says Ki­ran Ma­haraj, Pres­i­dent of T&T Cham­ber.

She made the com­ments dur­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion's post-bud­get event ti­tled, "Vi­sion to Ex­e­cu­tion - Ex­pand­ing Pro­duc­tiv­i­ty through a Con­nect­ed Econ­o­my" which took place at the Hy­att Re­gency, Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day.

Not­ing that the cham­ber's ad­vo­ca­cy has nev­er been more crit­i­cal, Ma­haraj stressed that crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties sti­fles in­vest­ment, dis­rupts busi­ness­es, and tar­nish­es T&T's in­ter­na­tion­al rep­u­ta­tion. She once again said that ur­gent and in­creased col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween busi­ness ser­vice or­gan­i­sa­tions and the Gov­ern­ment on the is­sue of crime is im­per­a­tive.

"To­geth­er, we must de­vel­op im­pact­ful so­lu­tions to crime—strate­gies that ad­dress both the im­me­di­ate threats and the un­der­ly­ing caus­es that have long-term im­pli­ca­tions. We know that there is no one so­lu­tion – we need to launch an at­tack that ad­dress­es all the arms of this chaot­ic oc­to­pus," Ma­haraj said as she iden­ti­fied eight arms: so­cio-eco­nom­ic fac­tors; law en­force­ment; leg­is­la­tion and the ju­di­cia­ry; prison sys­tem; com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment; tech­nol­o­gy util­i­sa­tion; pol­i­cy co­or­di­na­tion and ed­u­ca­tion and youth pre­ven­tion.

She al­so not­ed that the chal­lenges sur­round­ing the coun­try's for­eign cur­ren­cy sit­u­a­tion must be ad­dressed with hon­esty and trans­paren­cy, stat­ing that open di­a­logue and col­lab­o­ra­tive prob­lem-solv­ing are es­sen­tial to sta­bilise the econ­o­my and re­store con­fi­dence among in­vestors and cit­i­zens alike.

Re­gard­ing the ease of do­ing busi­ness, Ma­haraj said this can no longer be con­sid­ered a catch­phrase.

"It is a life­line for eco­nom­ic growth and op­por­tu­ni­ty for all cit­i­zens. We must cham­pi­on the im­ple­men­ta­tion of so­lu­tions that stream­line process­es, re­duce bu­reau­cra­cy and em­brace dig­i­tal in­no­va­tions. By mov­ing to­wards dig­i­tal plat­forms, we not on­ly en­hance ef­fi­cien­cy but al­so pro­mote trans­paren­cy and in­clu­siv­i­ty in our econ­o­my. We will sup­port pro­duc­tiv­i­ty," she added.

How­ev­er, Ma­haraj not­ed im­prov­ing the coun­try's busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment is in­suf­fi­cient if it does not con­cur­rent­ly ex­am­ine the gaps and break­ages in its so­cial in­fra­struc­ture and ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem.

"Our so­cial ser­vices must be ro­bust and re­spon­sive, en­sur­ing that the most vul­ner­a­ble among us are sup­port­ed. Ed­u­ca­tion, as the bedrock of any pro­gres­sive so­ci­ety, re­quires ur­gent re­form to equip our peo­ple with the skills and knowl­edge need­ed in to­day's glob­al econ­o­my," she ex­plained.

Re­gard­ing oth­er sec­tors, Ma­haraj said agri­cul­ture and the or­ange econ­o­my—the sec­tors en­com­pass­ing cre­ative in­dus­tries—hold im­mense, un­tapped po­ten­tial.

She ad­vised that a strate­gic plan to de­vel­op these ar­eas will not on­ly di­ver­si­fy the econ­o­my but al­so har­ness the tal­ents and re­sources that are cur­rent­ly un­der­utilised. In­vest­ing in agri­cul­ture en­sures food se­cu­ri­ty and fos­ters rur­al de­vel­op­ment, while the or­ange econ­o­my can po­si­tion us as a hub for cul­tur­al and cre­ative ex­cel­lence on the world stage, Ma­haraj added.

Fur­ther­more, she said the time has come to con­sid­er con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form, say­ing that the coun­try's gov­er­nance struc­tures must evolve to re­flect the as­pi­ra­tions and needs of so­ci­ety.