GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

Last Fri­day’s re­moval of Navin Dook­er­an as Ex­port Im­port Bank of T&T Ltd (EX­IM­BANK) CEO has sparked con­cern across the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, with cham­bers call­ing for ur­gent mea­sures to en­sure con­ti­nu­ity and sta­bil­i­ty at the state-owned fi­nan­cial fa­cil­i­ty.

The lead­er­ship shake­up comes even as for­eign ex­change short­ages re­main one of the most press­ing chal­lenges for busi­ness­es na­tion­wide, par­tic­u­lar­ly small and medi­um-sized en­ter­pris­es (SMEs).

Guardian Me­dia first re­port­ed on Dook­er­an’s dis­missal on Sat­ur­day. Con­tact­ed on the shock move by the Gov­ern­ment on Fri­day, Dook­er­an, who served as CEO for six and a half years, re­spond­ed briefly, “I am proud of what we ac­com­plished dur­ing my tenure, and I wish the best for the in­sti­tu­tion and the coun­try.”

Yes­ter­day, the Greater Tu­na­puna Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (GT­CIC) not­ed that while the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing Dook­er­an’s de­par­ture have not been dis­closed, the tran­si­tion “presents an op­por­tu­ni­ty for re­newed di­rec­tion and strength­ened gov­er­nance.”

“The GT­CIC re­mains hope­ful that this tran­si­tion will lead to im­prove­ments in the trans­paren­cy, ef­fi­cien­cy and fair­ness of forex al­lo­ca­tion sys­tems. Busi­ness­es con­sis­tent­ly call for clear­er com­mu­ni­ca­tion, sim­pli­fied process­es, and greater pre­dictabil­i­ty in ac­cess­ing for­eign ex­change for le­git­i­mate op­er­a­tional needs. A stronger, da­ta-dri­ven ap­proach—sup­port­ed by tech­nol­o­gy, stake­hold­er con­sul­ta­tion, and ro­bust over­sight—can help re­build con­fi­dence and en­sure that the FX made avail­able through EX­IM­BANK is ef­fec­tive­ly chan­nelled to sec­tors that stim­u­late em­ploy­ment, in­vest­ment, and na­tion­al com­pet­i­tive­ness,” GT­CIC pres­i­dent Ra­mon Gre­go­rio said.

As the EX­IM­BANK moves for­ward un­der new lead­er­ship, Gre­go­rio said the GT­CIC stands ready to col­lab­o­rate in the in­ter­est of eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty and busi­ness con­ti­nu­ity.

He al­so urged pol­i­cy­mak­ers and the bank’s board to use this mo­ment to deep­en en­gage­ment with the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty and en­sure that fu­ture poli­cies re­flect the re­al­i­ties faced by im­porters, man­u­fac­tur­ers, dis­trib­u­tors, and ser­vice providers, adding that the cham­ber re­mains com­mit­ted to ad­vo­cat­ing for sys­tems that en­hance trans­paren­cy, sup­port growth, and al­low busi­ness­es—large and small—to ac­cess the forex they need to thrive in an in­creas­ing­ly chal­leng­ing en­vi­ron­ment.

Echo­ing these con­cerns, Greater San Fer­nan­do Cham­ber of Com­merce pres­i­dent Ki­ran Singh stressed the ur­gency of ap­point­ing new lead­er­ship.

“We ex­pect that the board of EX­IM­BANK will be ag­gres­sive­ly seek­ing a re­place­ment or a new CEO to take the helm in the short­est pos­si­ble time,” Singh said. “This is a crit­i­cal time as we ap­proach the busy Christ­mas shop­ping pe­ri­od, when SMEs will be look­ing for forex. We ex­pect an an­nounce­ment soon on who will be the act­ing CEO and what will hap­pen go­ing for­ward as we en­ter 2026.”

Singh al­so raised broad­er ques­tions about the bank’s fu­ture di­rec­tion.

“What will be the new ob­jec­tives of EX­IM­BANK? How will they deal with the SME sec­tor? The Min­is­ter of Fi­nance had an­nounced sev­er­al new ini­tia­tives and strate­gies to em­pow­er SMEs and en­sure more eq­ui­table dis­tri­b­u­tion of forex. We ex­pect to hear an­nounce­ments soon about these ide­olo­gies and the new vi­sion for EX­IM­BANK,” he said.

The Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of Com­merce said it al­so ex­pects the Gov­ern­ment to move quick­ly to ap­point a CEO, adding any de­ci­sion tak­en must be for the greater eco­nom­ic good of the coun­try.

“We ful­ly re­spect the new board has the au­thor­i­ty to make de­ci­sions in the in­ter­est of the bank’s di­rec­tion, how­ev­er, these ac­tions must not in­ter­fere with the push to­ward eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion. To keep the fa­cil­i­ty work­ing ef­fec­tive­ly and grow­ing, we ex­pect the board and the Gov­ern­ment to move quick­ly in ap­point­ing a new CEO who has sol­id ex­pe­ri­ence ex­per­tise in that area to steady the or­gan­i­sa­tion and en­gage the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty from day one,” pres­i­dent Bal­dath Ma­haraj said.

He re­it­er­at­ed the call for im­proved eq­ui­ty and pre­dictabil­i­ty in forex al­lo­ca­tion, em­pha­sis­ing that busi­ness­es need as­sur­ance of suf­fi­cient funds and fair ac­cess to re­sources, adding that busi­ness­es need to know that suf­fi­cient funds are avail­able and that the process is fair and ac­ces­si­ble to all who qual­i­fy.

“In the end, the suc­cess of the new lead­er­ship will be judged by its abil­i­ty to dri­ve ex­port growth, widen ac­cess to cred­it for SMEs, and sup­port the busi­ness sec­tor across the board while the board main­tains strong gov­er­nance and trans­par­ent de­ci­sion mak­ing to en­sure the bank re­mains sus­tain­able and ef­fec­tive as a tool of na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment,” Ma­haraj added.

In Sep­tem­ber this year, the Min­istry of Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism ap­point­ed a new board of di­rec­tors to the EX­IM­BANK.

The mem­bers ap­point­ed to serve a two-year term were chair­man Ed­win Chari­ah, deputy chair­man

Suresh Ma­haraj and di­rec­tors Nan­di­ni Nar­ine, Bhushan Singh and Joseph Ridge Paul.

In Sep­tem­ber, a dai­ly news­pa­per re­port­ed leaked da­ta show­ing that phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal and poul­try com­pa­nies dom­i­nat­ed the bank’s for­eign ex­change dis­tri­b­u­tions over the past five years.

Ac­cord­ing to Ex­im­Bank records, from 2020 to mid-2025, the in­sti­tu­tion al­lo­cat­ed US$1.4 bil­lion in forex to 123 com­pa­nies un­der the es­sen­tial win­dow.

Among the largest re­cip­i­ents were Arawak and Com­pa­ny Ltd with over US$76 mil­lion, Nu­trim­ix US$78 mil­lion, Smith Robert­son and Com­pa­ny Ltd (now Aven­ta T&T) US$100 mil­lion, Prices­mart Clubs TT US$44 mil­lion, Bry­den PL Ltd US$29 mil­lion, Pen­ny­wise Cos­met­ics US$51 mil­lion, and Vem­co (a di­vi­sion of CDP Trinidad Ltd, now Aca­do) US$19 mil­lion.

In Sep­tem­ber, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar warned that the lack of trans­paren­cy in for­eign ex­change al­lo­ca­tions was cre­at­ing deep dis­tor­tions in the econ­o­my, con­cen­trat­ing wealth in the hands of a few while plac­ing small and medi­um en­ter­pris­es un­der strain.