Shas­tri Boodan

Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo ORTT has chal­lenged mem­bers of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty to of­fer them­selves to serve on state boards, com­mis­sions and tri­bunals.

In the fea­ture ad­dress at the Cou­va/Point Lisas Cham­ber of Com­merce (CPLCC) An­nu­al Christ­mas Din­ner and Awards Cer­e­mo­ny on Wednes­day, Kan­ga­loo said serv­ing in these ca­pac­i­ties “is very much a means of serv­ing the wider so­ci­ety.”

She added: “At this junc­ture in our coun­try’s de­vel­op­ment, I be­lieve it is a crit­i­cal­ly im­por­tant means of na­tion­al ser­vice.”

Not­ing the chal­lenges that come with the de­ci­sion to serve, the Pres­i­dent ad­mit­ted: “Those who do so ex­pose them­selves to the risk of be­ing crit­i­cised, of­ten un­fair­ly, by the very pub­lic whom they serve. As mem­bers of that very pub­lic, we might some­times seem to such per­sons, like un­grate­ful chil­dren in this re­gard. But, like good par­ents do, per­sons who an­swer this par­tic­u­lar call to serve the greater good, bear it all with love and with pa­tience.”

Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo told the busi­ness­men ser­vice might mean be­ing un­able to par­tic­i­pate in some ac­tiv­i­ties to pre­serve the ap­pear­ance of im­par­tial­i­ty.

“In oth­er cas­es, such ser­vice brings with it the bur­den of hav­ing to abide by cer­tain reg­u­la­tions which can seem oner­ous and that might feel quite in­va­sive,” she said.

She al­so urged the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty act on en­vi­ron­ment, so­cial, and gov­er­nance is­sues and point­ed out that con­sumers are look­ing for tru­ly en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly re­spon­si­ble or­gan­i­sa­tions and that in­sis­tence, in turn, is dri­ving busi­ness­es to re­spond and adapt to en­sure that they car­ry out their op­er­a­tions in en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly re­spect­ful and re­spon­si­ble ways.”

CPLCC head Mukesh Ram­s­ingh said the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty is ex­pect­ing a bleak 2024.

“We have this to look for­ward to, the ris­ing costs of elec­tric­i­ty, the re-im­ple­men­ta­tion of land tax. We don’t know what is go­ing to take place with the gas prices. I was told that in­sur­ance rate may be go­ing up in 2024,” he said

Ram­s­ingh said busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty can cope by piv­ot­ing to suit as they did dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic when many did busi­ness on­line.

Awards were pre­sent­ed to:

↓↓↓↓↓• ↓2022 Pres­i­dent’ Medal win­ner Makaya Hug­gins

↓(Ed­u­ca­tion)

↓• Hunters search and Res­cue team (Hu­man­i­tar­i­an)

• Jaden Seales (Sports)

• No­vo Farms (En­vi­ron­ment)

↓• Ase­quith En­gi­neer­ing (Busi­ness)

↓• New Wave Mar­ket­ing (Trail Blaz­er)