Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­les@guardian.co.tt

As Gov­ern­ment moves to in­crease penal­ties through the Fi­nance Bill 2026, econ­o­mist Dr Vanus James says the mea­sures re­flect a search for ad­di­tion­al rev­enue, while busi­ness rep­re­sen­ta­tives are ques­tion­ing the lack of con­sul­ta­tion.

The Fi­nance Bill, laid in Par­lia­ment on Fri­day by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo, pro­pos­es in­creas­es to dozens of fines, in­clud­ing a jump from $2,000 to $8,000 for man­u­fac­tur­ing vine­gar for sale with­out a li­cence and from $4,000 to $8,000 for man­u­fac­tur­ing co­pra prod­ucts with­out a li­cence. Penal­ties for op­er­at­ing a sawmill with­out a li­cence and re­mov­ing tim­ber with­out a per­mit would rise from $100,000 to $150,000.

James said the mea­sures were un­der­stand­able giv­en Gov­ern­ment’s fis­cal po­si­tion.

“I think they can be un­der­stood,” James said. “The econ­o­my is not grow­ing in a way that will gen­er­ate the rev­enues to meet the com­mit­ments the Gov­ern­ment has un­der­tak­en in the bud­get, and in par­tic­u­lar, the wage com­mit­ments that have been fi­nalised since the bud­get.”

He said gov­ern­ments fac­ing such cir­cum­stances typ­i­cal­ly seek ad­di­tion­al sources of rev­enue.

“Every dol­lar counts,” he said. “The Gov­ern­ment is in a po­si­tion where it has to col­lect rev­enues from what­ev­er sources are avail­able, giv­en the com­mit­ment. Gov­ern­ment is, there­fore, I think, rea­son­ably, cor­rect­ly look­ing around for quick wins, quick ways to raise rev­enue.”

Agri­cul­ture Econ­o­mist Omar­dath Ma­haraj viewed the pro­posed penal­ties through the lens of im­prov­ing stan­dards with­in the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor.

“For a long time, we keep ad­vo­cat­ing that farm­ers need to think about agri­cul­ture as a busi­ness,” Ma­haraj said.

He said the penal­ties could en­cour­age op­er­a­tors to for­malise their busi­ness­es and com­ply with food safe­ty stan­dards.

“It should act as an in­cen­tive for per­sons in­volved in agri-pro­cess­ing to for­malise their trade,” he said.

Ma­haraj re­ject­ed sug­ges­tions that the in­creas­es would dis­cour­age small op­er­a­tors.

How­ev­er, he said the Gov­ern­ment should have ex­plained how the new fig­ures were de­ter­mined.

“Def­i­nite­ly. That should have been done per­haps ei­ther in the min­is­ter’s pre­sen­ta­tion or from the min­is­ters of trade and agri­cul­ture,” he said.

“My ap­proach over the years has al­ways been … con­sul­ta­tion, col­lab­o­ra­tion, and co­or­di­na­tion.”

Mean­while, Cur­tis Williams, chair­man of the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, said en­force­ment re­mained the more im­por­tant is­sue.

“My biggest thing about fines is the en­force­ment, but we al­ready had fines and there was no en­force­ment on these fines,” Williams said.

“I don’t see any­thing wrong with those fines. Be­cause if that’s the law and it’s against the law to do these things, then you should be pun­ished.”

How­ev­er, Williams said busi­ness­es were not con­sult­ed.

“If you want to in­crease fees, have a con­ver­sa­tion with us.”

At the start of this year, the Gov­ern­ment in­tro­duced a broad set of in­creas­es, from traf­fic fines, cus­toms, and im­mi­gra­tion and pass­port-re­lat­ed fees.