The Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) is once again com­mend­ing Gov­ern­ment for its stance on il­lic­it trade, and says with con­tin­ued polic­ing and stronger en­force­ment of the req­ui­site laws, more cas­es will reach the pros­e­cu­tion stage.

An of­fi­cial state­ment from the TTMA quotes the busi­ness lob­by’s pres­i­dent, Tri­cia Coos­al, as de­scrib­ing il­lic­it trade as “a ma­jor ob­sta­cle in the Caribbean, es­pe­cial­ly in Trinidad and To­ba­go”.

The TTMA Pres­i­dent says she is hap­py Gov­ern­ment has made the erad­i­ca­tion of il­lic­it trade a top pri­or­i­ty.

“This is the first time in the his­to­ry of T&T that two own­ers of large re­tail out­lets have been held ac­count­able and will face the court for their role in sell­ing and trad­ing il­lic­it goods. We are proud to be part of the joint op­er­a­tional An­ti-Il­lic­it Trade Task Force, which com­pris­es mem­bers of the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try, Crime Stop­pers Trinidad and To­ba­go, Trinidad and To­ba­go Bu­reau of Stan­dards, In­tel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty Of­fice, Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice. We com­mend, in par­tic­u­lar, the Po­lice, Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion and the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try for their roles,” Coos­al ex­plained.

She said the ar­rests sig­ni­fy Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to re­duc­ing the preva­lence of il­lic­it trade and this will ul­ti­mate­ly help end the smug­gling and il­le­gal sale of make­up and clothes, pe­tro­le­um and its by-prod­ucts, to­bac­co, al­co­hol, wildlife, mu­sic, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty and oth­er tan­gi­ble and in­tan­gi­ble con­sumer goods.

Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc Don­ald Ja­cob con­firmed the Po­lice Ser­vice will con­tin­ue to act where nec­es­sary to bring these cas­es to pros­e­cu­tion.

“We are de­ter­mined to en­sure that per­sons who con­tin­u­ous­ly skirt the law by al­low­ing il­lic­it­ly trad­ed goods and prod­ucts to en­ter this coun­try will be pe­nalised. We can­not stand­by and al­low fake and coun­ter­feit goods and prod­ucts to sat­u­rate our mar­ket,” DCP Ja­cob as­sured.

Ms. Coos­al re­vealed that sev­er­al in­dus­tries were ad­verse­ly af­fect­ed by un­scrupu­lous im­porters and ex­porters, and law en­force­ment in­ter­ven­tion was not on­ly nec­es­sary but crit­i­cal.

“The fight against il­lic­it trade can be won if both the Gov­ern­ment and pri­vate sec­tor work to­geth­er to ad­dress the is­sue,” she said.  “We call on mem­bers of the pub­lic to con­tin­ue to seek out in­for­ma­tion on your prod­ucts be­fore you pur­chase, es­pe­cial­ly if you feel that a brand has been com­prised in any way.”

She be­lieves an­oth­er mea­sure which may help elim­i­nate the scourge of il­lic­it trade is the de­vel­op­ment of strin­gent guide­lines to en­sure free trade zones do not act as havens for il­lic­it trade.

“The Eco­nom­ic In­tel­li­gence Unit (EIU), the OECD and the Transna­tion­al Al­liance to Com­bat Il­lic­it Trade have adopt­ed sev­er­al rec­om­men­da­tions and the TTMA feels that the Gov­ern­ment should al­so re­view these rec­om­men­da­tions and adopt them,” she said.

Glob­al­ly, Ms. Coos­al not­ed, many coun­tries are plagued with a high­er im­port bill which may give smug­glers the op­por­tu­ni­ty to flood the mar­ket with sub­stan­dard items.  She cau­tioned con­sumers, busi­ness­es and law en­force­ment to re­main vig­i­lant:

“If you sus­pect a per­son is en­gag­ing in il­lic­it trade, or an item is fake, please con­tact your near­est Po­lice Sta­tion or Crime Stop­pers im­me­di­ate­ly. We can­not al­low il­le­git­i­mate busi­ness­es to flour­ish.”

Ac­cord­ing to the TTMA, il­lic­it trade con­tin­ues to de­prive the Gov­ern­ment of rev­enue col­lec­tion ef­forts and pos­es se­ri­ous health risks to con­sumers. Il­lic­it trade af­fects all con­sumer goods and prod­ucts such as clothes, make­up, al­co­hol, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, fash­ion jew­ellery, food, etc. A col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­fort among pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors and law en­force­ment au­thor­i­ties is re­quired to de­vel­op meth­ods to deal with the scourge of il­lic­it trade.

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TTMA’s Il­lic­it Trade Desk was formed in 2018 as part of the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s thrust to in­crease aware­ness and re­duce in­stances of il­lic­it trade ac­tiv­i­ties in Trinidad and To­ba­go. The ef­fects of il­lic­it trade are nu­mer­ous and in­clude a loss of rev­enue to the Gov­ern­ment, the pro­vi­sion of sub-stan­dard goods, and the ero­sion of le­git­i­mate busi­ness­es (the lat­ter af­fects the jobs of many). TTMA recog­nis­es the ad­ver­si­ties as­so­ci­at­ed with il­lic­it trade and sup­ports ini­tia­tives geared to­wards erad­i­cat­ing these ac­tiv­i­ties in Trinidad and To­ba­go.