GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

The T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce yes­ter­day called on state-owned Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) to pro­vide greater trans­paren­cy on its nat­ur­al gas pric­ing for­mu­la, as it joined oth­er pri­vate sec­tor bod­ies in crit­i­cis­ing the 77 per cent in­crease in nat­ur­al gas prices to T&T’s light in­dus­tri­al and com­mer­cial (LIC) cus­tomers.

At a news con­fer­ence, the T&T Cham­ber warned that the coun­try’s busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment is com­ing un­der in­creas­ing strain as com­pa­nies strug­gle to ab­sorb sharp cost es­ca­la­tions fol­low­ing the in­crease in the price of nat­ur­al gas to the LICs, as it called for a com­pre­hen­sive na­tion­al en­er­gy com­pet­i­tive­ness frame­work, among oth­er mea­sures.

Cham­ber pres­i­dent Son­ji Pierre-Chase, speak­ing at the Cham­ber’s West­moor­ings of­fices, out­lined that mem­bers es­ti­mate in­creased pro­duc­tion costs of US$500,000 to US$1.2 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly, ex­pens­es too sig­nif­i­cant for many com­pa­nies to with­stand with­out rais­ing prices, re­duc­ing ex­ports or re­struc­tur­ing op­er­a­tions.

Some firms, she not­ed that are al­ready deal­ing with new tax mea­sures in­tro­duced on Jan­u­ary 1, 2026, are re­assess­ing the vi­a­bil­i­ty of main­tain­ing pro­duc­tion in T&T, adding this could lead to 200 to 500 job loss­es in cer­tain op­er­a­tions, with rip­ple ef­fects across na­tion­al sup­ply chains.

In the midst of these pres­sures, Pierre-Chase said while col­lab­o­ra­tion was strong at the be­gin­ning of the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion’s term—there has been “a wean­ing” of struc­tured en­gage­ment as the cham­ber is­sued a clar­i­on call for greater en­gage­ment be­tween the gov­ern­ment and the pri­vate sec­tor.

Stat­ing that the im­pli­ca­tions for the wider busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment are be­com­ing in­creas­ing­ly ev­i­dent, Pierre-Chase said, “These are not mar­gin­al ad­just­ments that can sim­ply be ab­sorbed. The like­ly con­se­quences are high­er con­sumer prices; re­duced ex­port com­pet­i­tive­ness, po­ten­tial job loss­es and con­trac­tion in man­u­fac­tur­ing out­put,” she main­tained.

Dur­ing the ques­tion and an­swer seg­ment, Pierre-Chase stressed that al­though the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor is bear­ing the brunt of the gas price hike, the im­pact of re­cent pol­i­cy de­ci­sions is be­ing felt across all sec­tors.

Bars, restau­rants, and cul­tur­al busi­ness­es are still reel­ing from in­creased ex­cise du­ties; phar­ma­cies con­tin­ue to face reg­u­la­to­ry un­cer­tain­ty and ris­ing im­port costs; and a num­ber of small en­ter­pris­es have al­ready shut their doors as a di­rect re­sponse to mount­ing fi­nan­cial pres­sure.

These clo­sures, she con­firmed, have al­ready led to job loss­es among Cham­ber mem­bers.

For­eign ex­change short­ages re­main a par­al­lel ob­sta­cle Pierre-Chase said, adding the cham­ber is hop­ing to have dis­cus­sions at a na­tion­al lev­el.

Main­tain­ing that the cham­ber is not op­posed to re­form, Pierre-Chase al­so called for:

• Struc­tured en­gage­ment be­tween Gov­ern­ment, NGC, and in­dus­try stake­hold­ers;

• A phased and rules-based im­ple­men­ta­tion frame­work rather than sud­den shocks;

• Joint eco­nom­ic im­pact mod­el­ling to as­sess con­se­quences be­fore full im­ple­men­ta­tion;

• De­vel­op­ment of a five to 10-year na­tion­al en­er­gy com­pet­i­tive­ness frame­work

Such mea­sures, the cham­ber pres­i­dent said, would al­low busi­ness­es to plan, in­vest and main­tain em­ploy­ment while sup­port­ing gov­ern­ment’s fis­cal ob­jec­tives.

Pierre-Chase ad­vised that pol­i­cy op­tions that mer­it con­sid­er­a­tion with­in a co­or­di­nat­ed frame­work in­clude:

• Tiered gas pric­ing based on con­sump­tion lev­els and in­dus­try clas­si­fi­ca­tion;

• Pro­gres­sive me­ter­ing sys­tems that pro­tect vul­ner­a­ble house­holds while dis­cour­ag­ing ex­cess; and

• Phased sub­sidy ad­just­ments linked to trans­par­ent mar­ket in­di­ca­tors.

Mooni­lal takes note

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal said he has tak­en note of the T&T Cham­ber's po­si­tion.

"I just want to re­it­er­ate that these mat­ters are be­fore the NGC. I'm in­formed that sev­er­al of the com­pa­nies have in­deed ar­rived at a set­tle­ment with NGC on the mat­ter of gas pric­ing. There may be one or two out­stand­ing. So I'm not aware that many mat­ters and many en­ti­ties are still out­stand­ing. But these are mat­ters, of course, the NGC en­ters in­to on with ne­go­ti­a­tions and set­tle­ment and res­o­lu­tion," he said.

Mooni­lal said he was "pre­pared to meet and treat with any mem­ber of the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty or com­pa­ny that would have con­cerns and so on."

"It's not a mat­ter of not want­i­ng to speak, but it's a mat­ter that they have been in­volved in suc­cess­ful ne­go­ti­a­tions with the NGC. The NGC has a man­date to en­sure that the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go get a rea­son­able re­turn for the re­sources of Trinidad and To­ba­go, and they will con­tin­ue their work in that re­gard. So in terms of the mat­ters be­fore us, I think they are just one or two out­stand­ing mat­ters," he added.

Tan­coo re­sponds

In re­sponse Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo said he has "main­tained an open door to dis­cus­sions with busi­ness in­ter­ests" in­clud­ing the T&T Cham­ber, T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion and the re­gion­al cham­bers.

"These meet­ings have been ex­treme­ly pos­i­tive and pro­duc­tive," he said.