GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo has as­sured the pub­lic that the gov­ern­ment does not in­tend to in­crease fu­el prices at this time, de­spite the ris­ing cost of im­port­ed en­er­gy prod­ucts dri­ven by es­ca­lat­ing ten­sions in the Mid­dle East.

The min­is­ter made the com­ments while an­swer­ing ques­tions from the me­dia fol­low­ing the Lead­er­ship Dis­cus­sion host­ed by the T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) held at the Hy­att Re­gency yes­ter­day.

Tan­coo ad­dressed con­cerns re­gard­ing how the geopo­lit­i­cal in­sta­bil­i­ty is trick­ling down to the lo­cal econ­o­my.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing that T&T is feel­ing the pinch of high­er ship­ping costs and more ex­pen­sive im­port­ed fu­els, he char­ac­terised the cur­rent glob­al mar­ket surge as a “short-term blip” that re­quires a care­ful bal­anc­ing act.

“We pro­duce gas, we pro­duce some oil and there­fore as a re­sult we would have in­creased our take from the high­er prices that have re­sult­ed. What is re­quired now though is a bit of a bal­anc­ing act be­cause we have some in­creased costs and we have some in­creased rev­enue. But it’s a bit of a bal­anc­ing act know­ing that this is a blip,” Tan­coo said.

He de­scribed the high­er en­er­gy prices as a re­sult of US/Is­rael war in Iran as “a short-term sit­u­a­tion,” that T&T can­not get over­ly con­fi­dent about be­cause the coun­try could ex­pe­ri­ence a small in­crease in rev­enues.

“We can’t get over-car­ried away with those kinds of things be­cause we are al­so go­ing to in­crease in costs,” Tan­coo said.

The fi­nance min­is­ter, how­ev­er, re­mained tight-lipped on spe­cif­ic eco­nom­ic in­di­ca­tors ahead of the up­com­ing mid-term bud­get re­view, which he said would be soon.

When pressed for da­ta on the na­tion’s gross do­mes­tic prod­uct (GDP), Tan­coo de­clined to pro­vide de­tails, of­fer­ing on­ly a “no com­ments yet.”

He was sim­i­lar­ly brief re­gard­ing the lead­er­ship vac­u­um at the Ex­port-Im­port Bank of T&T (Ex­im­Bank) fol­low­ing the ex­it of CEO Narvin Dook­er­an on­ly say­ing, “Soon. Very, very soon” that a new CEO would be an­nounced.

Hilton a val­ued brand,

says min­is­ter

Mean­while, Min­is­ter of Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism Satyaka­ma “Ka­ma” Ma­haraj, who was al­so tak­ing ques­tions from re­porters at the TTMA event, clar­i­fied the re­cent move to shift the Evolv­ing Tec­knolo­gies and En­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment (eTeck) from his min­istry to the new­ly cre­at­ed Min­istry of Land and Le­gal Af­fairs.

Ma­haraj ex­plained this was dri­ven by the need for more ef­fi­cient man­age­ment of state lands used for in­dus­tri­al de­vel­op­ment.

“I’m al­so the Min­is­ter of In­vest­ments. So, when peo­ple come to me, and they’re look­ing for lands for fac­to­ries, I don’t know where these lands are lo­cat­ed. So, the Prime Min­is­ter has de­cid­ed, and the Cab­i­net, to put all in one body and they have con­trol of cadas­tral sheets, and they pull it up, and they can lo­cate the land,” Ma­haraj ex­plained.

Ad­dress­ing spec­u­la­tion of a per­son­al dis­pute with the eTeck chair, Ma­haraj dis­missed the sug­ges­tion.

“No, no. As you would ap­pre­ci­ate, there were dif­fer­ences of opin­ion on how to han­dle Hilton. It’s a com­pli­cat­ed mat­ter and the chair has some views and we have some views. But I sat on the board with her 30 years ago. She’s a close fam­i­ly friend,” Ma­haraj added.

Ma­haraj said the Hilton brand re­mains “val­ued,” and gov­ern­ment’s goal is to re­tain its pres­ence in T&T while se­cur­ing a pri­vate part­ner to help re­de­vel­op the prop­er­ty.

“Noth­ing is cer­tain, but it’s a val­ued brand. And we are do­ing every­thing in our pow­er to keep them here, and to work with them. It’s a work in progress,” Ma­haraj added.

He un­der­scored that Mag­dale­na Grand re­sort in To­ba­go falls un­der the same prin­ci­ple that gov­ern­ment owns the land and in­fra­struc­ture, and there­fore must se­cure re­turns for tax­pay­ers.