GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

Ahead of the up­com­ing na­tion­al bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion, stake­hold­ers are call­ing for strate­gic pol­i­cy shifts and tar­get­ed fis­cal in­ter­ven­tions.

Econ­o­mist Dr Ronald Ramkissoon, Greater Tu­na­puna Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (GT­CIC) pres­i­dent Ra­mon Gre­go­rio, San Juan Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion (SJ­BA) pres­i­dent Abrahim Ali, Agri­cul­tur­al So­ci­ety of T&T (ASTT) pres­i­dent Daryl Ram­per­sad and To­ba­go Di­vi­sion of the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce chair­man Cur­tis Williams have mapped out crit­i­cal fis­cal pri­or­i­ties span­ning in­vestor con­fi­dence, eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, re­gion­al au­ton­o­my, small busi­ness re­lief, na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and food se­cu­ri­ty.

High­light­ing the fun­da­men­tal foun­da­tion for na­tion­al growth, econ­o­mist Ramkissoon em­pha­sised that restor­ing con­fi­dence among both lo­cal and for­eign in­vestors re­mains the sin­gle most crit­i­cal con­di­tion for dri­ving re­cov­ery.

He ex­plained that ro­bust in­vest­ment serves as the pri­ma­ry en­gine for job cre­ation, for­eign ex­change gen­er­a­tion and over­all rev­enue growth, warn­ing that eco­nom­ic out­put would con­tin­ue to stall with­out it.

Ramkissoon not­ed that per­sis­tent struc­tur­al chal­lenges linger around em­ploy­ment, for­eign ex­change avail­abil­i­ty and tar­get­ed in­vest­ment in non-en­er­gy sec­tors.

Build­ing on the broad eco­nom­ic out­look, Gre­go­rio out­lined three cen­tral pri­or­i­ties from the com­mer­cial sec­tor’s per­spec­tive, as he called for ag­gres­sive eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion away from his­tor­i­cal re­liance on oil and gas, not­ing that en­er­gy rev­enue re­mains in­her­ent­ly volatile.

He urged the ex­pan­sion of non-en­er­gy sec­tors—specif­i­cal­ly agri­cul­ture, tourism, man­u­fac­tur­ing and the cre­ative or “or­ange” econ­o­my—to re­duce the na­tion’s vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to glob­al en­er­gy price swings. Fur­ther­more, Gre­go­rio stressed the ne­ces­si­ty of pru­dent fis­cal con­sol­i­da­tion and debt man­age­ment.

He not­ed that while Gov­ern­ment must nar­row the bud­get deficit, it must do so while ho­n­our­ing ex­ist­ing fi­nan­cial com­mit­ments, such as the ten per cent pub­lic sec­tor wage in­crease and na­tion­al in­sur­ance con­tri­bu­tion hikes.

Ad­dress­ing the day-to-day sur­vival of small en­ter­pris­es, Ali iden­ti­fied small and medi­um-sized en­ter­pris­es (SMEs) as low-hang­ing fruit for rapid eco­nom­ic stim­u­la­tion.

He ar­gued that many cit­i­zens re­main in sur­vival mode and re­quire tar­get­ed em­ploy­ment pro­grammes to pro­vide ba­sic sus­te­nance and jump­start dai­ly com­mer­cial ac­tiv­i­ty. Sup­port­ing wage earn­ers and mi­cro-en­ter­pris­es, he not­ed, would cre­ate a nec­es­sary rip­ple ef­fect that al­lows small busi­ness­es to re­gen­er­ate.

Be­yond eco­nom­ic stim­u­la­tion, both Gre­go­rio and Ali iden­ti­fied na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty as a crit­i­cal is­sue di­rect­ly im­pact­ing com­mer­cial vi­tal­i­ty and pub­lic safe­ty.

Gre­go­rio de­clared crime to be a crit­i­cal item, stat­ing, “The front-burn­er item, like many oth­er cit­i­zens through­out Trinidad and To­ba­go and in the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, it’s crime. Crime and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty spend­ing, with se­cu­ri­ty con­sis­tent­ly among the largest bud­get heads. Tar­get­ed in­vest­ment in polic­ing ca­pac­i­ty, tech­nol­o­gy, and crime pre­ven­tion pro­grammes re­mains a top pub­lic con­cern.”

Ali re­in­forced these con­cerns by high­light­ing se­ri­ous gaps in the pe­nal sys­tem, specif­i­cal­ly ex­press­ing alarm over the re­lease of of­fend­ers who were in­car­cer­at­ed or de­tained un­der Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders with­out re­ceiv­ing ad­e­quate re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion, warn­ing that cor­rec­tion­al fa­cil­i­ties have turned in­to “uni­ver­si­ties of crim­i­nal­i­ty.”

Echo­ing the call for struc­tur­al sup­port, Ram­per­sad pre­sent­ed three non-ne­go­tiable pri­or­i­ties aimed at strength­en­ing na­tion­al food se­cu­ri­ty.

He in­sist­ed that Gov­ern­ment must first over­haul the agri­cul­tur­al in­cen­tive pro­gramme by in­creas­ing in­cen­tive val­ues to match cur­rent pro­duc­tion costs and re­mov­ing the bu­reau­crat­ic bot­tle­necks that de­lay farmer reg­is­tra­tion and badge is­suance.

Ram­per­sad al­so high­light­ed the ur­gent need to de­vel­op and main­tain agri­cul­tur­al in­fra­struc­ture through­out Trinidad and To­ba­go, stress­ing that de­te­ri­o­rat­ing ac­cess roads, in­ad­e­quate drainage sys­tems and poor ir­ri­ga­tion net­works re­peat­ed­ly ex­pose farm­ers to dev­as­tat­ing flood loss­es and trans­port de­lays.

He al­so tar­get­ed ac­cess to fi­nance, say­ing, “It’s rather dif­fi­cult to go to the ADB (Agri­cul­tur­al De­vel­op­ment Bank) as a farmer with­out prop­er pa­per­work in place, and you have to wait three to four, some­times six months to ac­cess a loan from the ADB.”

Ad­dress­ing the se­vere eco­nom­ic stag­na­tion cur­rent­ly af­fect­ing To­ba­go, Williams paint­ed a stark pic­ture of the is­land’s cur­rent com­mer­cial re­al­i­ty.

He de­scribed the is­land’s econ­o­my as es­sen­tial­ly “flat-lined,” with most busi­ness­es ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a sus­tained de­cline in sales and rev­enue.

Com­mer­cial op­er­a­tors, he not­ed, are re­ly­ing heav­i­ly on the up­com­ing To­ba­go Car­ni­val and Christ­mas pe­ri­od to gen­er­ate a tem­po­rary uptick in rev­enue sim­ply to ser­vice their out­stand­ing debts and op­er­a­tional bills.

To over­come this pro­longed slump, Williams sug­gest­ed that at­tract­ing for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment is an ab­solute ne­ces­si­ty that should have been re­alised “yes­ter­day.”

He urged Gov­ern­ment to es­tab­lish di­rect in­ter­na­tion­al flights to the is­land, point­ing out that for­eign guest ar­rivals re­main crit­i­cal­ly low.

Williams al­so urged that the long-await­ed open­ing of the new ter­mi­nal build­ing at the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port in Crown Point would sig­nal the start of a trans­for­ma­tive new era for the is­land.