SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

shar­lene.ram­per­sad@guardian.co.tt

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce has ex­pressed doubt over whether the newest re­stric­tions an­nounced by the Prime Min­is­ter will be enough to curb the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

In a re­lease is­sued short­ly af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced the clo­sure of all food ser­vices and non-es­sen­tial busi­ness­es yes­ter­day, Cham­ber chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Gabriel Faria said the cham­ber was look­ing for­ward to the en­force­ment of more strin­gent reg­u­la­tions.

He said the Cham­ber had pre­vi­ous­ly called for these mea­sures and bet­ter man­age­ment of the coun­try’s porous bor­ders.

But he said the Cham­ber did not be­lieve busi­ness­es should be shut down com­plete­ly.

“We un­der­stand the con­cern about the move­ment of peo­ple and that is why we be­lieve take away and de­liv­ery ser­vices for all busi­ness make sense, they do not have to be closed down,” Faria said.

He said many busi­ness­es have in­vest­ed and de­vel­oped their dig­i­tal in­fra­struc­ture to be able to ac­com­mo­date curb­side and de­liv­ery ser­vices.

Faria said there has al­so been an in­crease in de­liv­ery ser­vices, which he said are safe and in most cas­es, con­tact­less.

He said the Gov­ern­ment should fo­cus on get­ting vac­cines for the pop­u­la­tion.

“We must con­tin­ue to ag­gres­sive­ly pur­sue the pro­cure­ment of vac­cines, the cost of con­tin­ued lock­down to the econ­o­my will be sig­nif­i­cant­ly more than what­ev­er we have to pay for the vac­cines.”

He al­so called on the Gov­ern­ment to in­crease test­ing and con­tact trac­ing.

Faria said this needs to be done, es­pe­cial­ly in high-risk com­mu­ni­ties where the spread of the virus has es­ca­lat­ed.

He al­so called on the Gov­ern­ment to pro­vide fi­nan­cial sup­port to busi­ness­es im­pact­ed in this lock­down.

Sharaz Khan, manager of Sultan's Tasty Pies said he understands the need for stricter lockdown measures.

SHARLENE RAMPERSAD

“Based on Gov­ern­ment’s lim­it­ed abil­i­ty to pro­vide sup­port, would it not be bet­ter to al­low the es­tab­lished busi­ness­es which have a track record of op­er­at­ing safe­ly to op­er­ate with re­duced ca­pac­i­ties so they can sus­tain op­er­a­tions even at a low­er lev­el?” Faria asked.

He al­so called on the pub­lic to do their part to curb the spread of the virus, say­ing the cur­rent in­fec­tion trend and po­ten­tial im­pact was sober­ing.

Mean­while, Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion (DO­MA) pres­i­dent Gre­go­ry Aboud said even with­out the sta­tis­tics show­ing how quick­ly the par­al­lel health care sys­tem could be over­whelmed, it was ob­vi­ous T&T was in a cri­sis.

In a re­lease short­ly af­ter the new re­stric­tions were an­nounced, Aboud praised the Prime Min­is­ter for tak­ing tough de­ci­sions, say­ing sav­ing lives must be the coun­try’s top pri­or­i­ty.

He called on cit­i­zens to stop ‘fin­ger-point­ing’ and sup­port the new mea­sures.

He al­so sent out a call to oth­er busi­ness own­ers.

“We wish to en­cour­age the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, wher­ev­er pos­si­ble, to re­new their com­mit­ment to as­sist­ing those in their em­ploy in what­ev­er can be done to sup­port them dur­ing this new pe­ri­od of re­stric­tion,” Aboud said.

President and Spokesman of the Downtown Owners and Merchants Association (DOMA) Gregory Aboud.

Pres­i­dent of the Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of Com­merce Richie Sookhai said he too un­der­stands the need for more strin­gent mea­sures to be put in place.

Sookhai said he not­ed the Prime Min­is­ter’s com­ments about busi­ness­es not be­ing com­pli­ant with the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board (NIB) and how this pre­vent­ed their em­ploy­ees from re­ceiv­ing grants dur­ing the lock­down last year.

He called on busi­ness­es to en­sure com­pli­ance, say­ing it would make the en­tire process eas­i­er.

Sookhai said while he agrees with the lock­down mea­sures, there is on­ly one route to re­turn nor­mal­cy to T&T.

“The on­ly so­lu­tion they have go­ing for­ward is to en­sure to­tal vac­ci­na­tion of the pop­u­la­tion, that is the way oth­er na­tions have done it and that’s why they are able to open their economies to­day,” Sookhai said.

Guardian Me­dia spoke to sev­er­al ven­dors in Freeport, who had to close their busi­ness­es as the new re­stric­tions come in­to ef­fect at mid­night.

Sharaz Khan, who man­ages Sul­tan’s Tasty Pies, said he was not op­posed to the lock­down mea­sures.

“What has to be done, needs to be done and at this point in time, we have to take pre­cau­tions and un­til bet­ter can be done, we will be out again,” Khan said.

He said he had per­ish­able stock in hand but would have to fig­ure out what to do with it over the next three weeks.

The line at a doubles vendor in Freeport on Monday, shortly after the new restrictions were announced.

SHARLENE RAMPERSAD

An­oth­er ven­dor, who asked to be iden­ti­fied on­ly as Ram­di­al, said he was will­ing to com­ply and co­op­er­ate with all the new mea­sures.

Ram­di­al said it was bet­ter to stay home for a few weeks than to see T&T face a sim­i­lar scene to In­dia, where hun­dreds die every day from the virus.