The T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) says fo­cus must be placed on en­force­ment to stamp out il­lic­it trade.

In a state­ment the or­gan­i­sa­tion said there must be con­ti­nu­ity of the Mul­ti-Agency Task Force (MATF) led by the Po­lice Ser­vice with of­fi­cials from the To­bac­co Con­trol Unit, the Fire Ser­vice, the Bu­reau of Stan­dards and the Min­istry of Health to re­duce this type of crime.

The TTMA al­so praised the ef­forts to law en­force­ment of­fi­cials over the past year.

“The seizures and pros­e­cu­tions in 2022 thus far is a good sign. Two busi­ness­men were ar­rest­ed and 81,320 il­lic­it to­bac­co prod­ucts seized, 552 in elec­tri­cal items be­lieved to be sub­stan­dard, $43,088 and a re­pro­grammed cash reg­is­ter from an il­le­gal Play Whe site and 13 unau­tho­rised gam­bling ma­chines were con­fis­cat­ed,” ac­cord­ing to TTMA’s pres­i­dent Tri­cia Coos­al.

She said for far too long il­lic­it trade was al­lowed to flour­ish, em­pha­sis­ing it is time to stop the en­try of coun­ter­feit and harm­ful prod­ucts in­to the coun­try.

The TTMA pres­i­dent al­so added that un­scrupu­lous busi­ness­men need to recog­nise there are con­se­quences to such ac­tions.

Coos­al ad­vised that a com­pre­hen­sive and holis­tic ap­proach is re­quired, sug­gest­ing that from the leg­isla­tive per­spec­tive T&T’s laws need to be con­tin­u­ous­ly amend­ed to al­low for more se­ri­ous mea­sures and en­force­ment.

From the busi­ness as­pect en­ti­ties need to ad­here to rules and reg­u­la­tions en­sur­ing au­then­tic prod­ucts are sold, and from the con­sumer as­pect cit­i­zens need to be aware of the scourge of il­lic­it trade and re­sist buy­ing il­le­gal prod­ucts, Coos­al added.

Fur­ther, she said il­lic­it goods can have dis­as­trous im­pact on lives and liveli­hoods as it can re­sult in the loss lives in some in­stances and loss of jobs in oth­ers cir­cum­stances.

Coos­al fur­ther not­ed there needs to be clear poli­cies and guide­lines to fos­ter joint ac­tion among law en­force­ment agen­cies, as well as, fund­ing for in­tel­li­gence ef­forts,

“We all have a part to play and the TTMA would like to see prop­er prod­uct track­ing and trac­ing, in ad­di­tion to amend­ment of the law for stiffer sanc­tions to de­ter il­lic­it traders,” she added, ad­vis­ing the es­tab­lish­ment of the Spe­cial Eco­nom­ic Zone (SEZ) would al­so help with this process.

Coos­al al­so added that while tra­di­tion­al Free Trade Zones (FTZ) fa­cil­i­tate eco­nom­ic growth and di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, it is al­so known for per­pet­u­at­ing il­lic­it trade and act as havens for smug­gling high pro­file goods.

“How­ev­er, it is be­lieved that the tighter con­trols, penal­ties, ro­bust mon­i­tor­ing and in­de­pen­dent au­dits, as pro­posed to be in­tro­duced in the new Spe­cial Eco­nom­ic Zone (which re­places the FTZ) frame­work, would serve to mit­i­gate the pos­si­ble oc­cur­rence of il­lic­it trade ac­tiv­i­ties,” she ex­plained.

Coos­al al­so em­pha­sised that a re­duc­tion in il­lic­it trade would al­so en­able Gov­ern­ment to col­lect more tax rev­enues, pro­tect cit­i­zens of sub­stan­dard and harm­ful goods and help pre­serve the busi­ness­es of le­git­i­mate com­pa­nies.