GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

Busi­ness cham­bers are cau­tion­ing that the de­par­ture of two of the coun­try’s largest in­dus­tri­al play­ers—ANSA McAL and Trinidad Ce­ment Ltd (TCL)—from the T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) re­flects deep­er frac­tures in na­tion­al pri­vate sec­tor rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

Greater Tu­na­puna Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (GT­CIC) pres­i­dent Ra­mon Gre­go­rio de­scribed the with­drawals as “a clear sign that long-stand­ing mech­a­nisms for ad­vo­ca­cy and con­sul­ta­tion are un­der re­al pres­sure.”

He not­ed that the con­cerns raised by the man­u­fac­tur­ers go be­yond in­ter­nal as­so­ci­a­tion mat­ters, touch­ing on wider is­sues of en­er­gy pric­ing, com­pet­i­tive­ness and the abil­i­ty of in­dus­try groups to in­flu­ence gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy.

“The de­ci­sion by TCL and ANSA McAL to with­draw from the TTMA re­flects deep­er ten­sions with­in the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor about rep­re­sen­ta­tion, ad­vo­ca­cy, and align­ment on strate­gic pri­or­i­ties. From one per­spec­tive, their move sig­nals gen­uine dis­sat­is­fac­tion with how ef­fec­tive­ly the as­so­ci­a­tion is en­gag­ing gov­ern­ment and in­flu­enc­ing pol­i­cy on crit­i­cal is­sues such as en­er­gy pric­ing, com­pet­i­tive­ness, and the op­er­at­ing en­vi­ron­ment for large man­u­fac­tur­ers,” Gre­go­rio ex­plained.

In a let­ter dat­ed Jan­u­ary 26, ANSA McAL said it was with­draw­ing all of the group’s man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pa­nies from the TTMA as a re­sult of “deep con­cern re­gard­ing the as­so­ci­a­tion’s re­cent con­duct, rep­re­sen­ta­tion, and ef­fec­tive­ness in ad­vo­cat­ing for the in­ter­ests of its mem­ber­ship, par­tic­u­lar­ly in mat­ters of crit­i­cal na­tion­al and eco­nom­ic im­por­tance.”

The group said it was pro­found­ly con­cerned by the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny’s (NGC) stat­ed in­tent to in­crease nat­ur­al gas prices and the broad­er pol­i­cy di­rec­tion this sig­nals.

“Such in­creas­es will have a di­rect and dam­ag­ing im­pact on man­u­fac­tur­ing and pro­duc­tion costs, re­duce the com­pet­i­tive­ness of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ex­ports, place pres­sure on con­sumer prices, cre­ate fur­ther chal­lenges in se­cur­ing crit­i­cal for­eign ex­change to fund present op­er­a­tions and in­evitably lead to re­duced in­vest­ment, job loss­es, and low­er tax rev­enues to the State,” ANSA McAL out­lined.

Gre­go­rio said at the same time, the TTMA con­tin­ues to serve as an im­por­tant um­brel­la body for a wide cross-sec­tion of man­u­fac­tur­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly small and medi­um-sized firms that re­ly on col­lec­tive ad­vo­ca­cy and shared plat­forms to have their voic­es heard.

“While ex­its of ma­jor play­ers raise valid ques­tions about gov­er­nance, con­sul­ta­tion and rel­e­vance, they al­so high­light the risk of frag­men­ta­tion in pri­vate-sec­tor rep­re­sen­ta­tion at a time when uni­fied en­gage­ment is most need­ed,” Gre­go­rio said.

He not­ed that ul­ti­mate­ly, the sit­u­a­tion points to an op­por­tu­ni­ty for re­flec­tion on both sides—strength­en­ing in­ter­nal di­a­logue, mod­ernising ad­vo­ca­cy ap­proach­es, and find­ing com­mon ground to ad­vance the broad­er in­ter­ests of the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor and the na­tion­al econ­o­my.

Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber pres­i­dent Bal­dath Ma­haraj echoed these con­cerns, call­ing the sit­u­a­tion a “sober­ing mo­ment for the na­tion­al busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty and sig­nals that the cur­rent frame­work for en­er­gy pol­i­cy di­a­logue and pri­vate sec­tor rep­re­sen­ta­tion is un­der se­ri­ous strain.”

“There has tra­di­tion­al­ly been a clear ex­pec­ta­tion that the TTMA would serve as the col­lec­tive and ef­fec­tive voice of ma­jor man­u­fac­tur­ers on is­sues such as en­er­gy pric­ing. The de­par­ture of two of its large mem­bers sug­gests a loss of con­fi­dence in that role,” Ma­haraj said, as he called for deep­er, more trans­par­ent and more struc­tured en­gage­ment be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor.

Mean­while, Greater San Fer­nan­do Area Cham­ber of Com­merce pres­i­dent Ki­ran Singh agreed that the is­sue of nat­ur­al gas pric­ing is com­plex and far-reach­ing, as it af­fects not on­ly large in­dus­tri­al users but al­so down­stream man­u­fac­tur­ers, small and medi­um-sized en­ter­pris­es, em­ploy­ment lev­els, con­sumer prices and the over­all com­pet­i­tive­ness of the lo­cal econ­o­my.

In this con­text, he said the TTMA has an es­sen­tial role to play in bal­anc­ing di­verse mem­ber in­ter­ests while en­gag­ing Gov­ern­ment on pol­i­cy mat­ters that af­fect the na­tion­al good.

Main­tain­ing that col­lec­tive en­gage­ment and struc­tured di­a­logue through rep­re­sen­ta­tive bod­ies such as the TTMA re­mains the most ef­fec­tive way to in­flu­ence pol­i­cy, pro­mote sta­bil­i­ty and pro­tect the long-term in­ter­ests of the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor, Singh warned that frag­men­ta­tion of the pri­vate sec­tor voice at a time of eco­nom­ic un­cer­tain­ty risks weak­en­ing ad­vo­ca­cy ef­forts and re­duc­ing the lever­age need­ed to se­cure thought­ful, phased, and pre­dictable pol­i­cy out­comes — par­tic­u­lar­ly in re­la­tion to en­er­gy pric­ing, which re­mains a cor­ner­stone of T&T’s in­dus­tri­al base.