Getting our product ready for market

The Chamber welcomes the invitation by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar to join hands with Government to make Trinidad and Tobago the gateway to the Americas, delivered during the course of her address at the launch of the Siparia Chamber of Commerce in April of this year.  In the feature address, the Prime Minister admitted that the only way forward for us now is for the private sector to be the driver of the economy, with which Government was prepared to work as a facilitator. She declared that “for too long, the State has been the main engine behind driving the economy and it has not worked and it will not work, because the role of a Government is not that of the private sector. The Government has been competing with the private sector in every regard and it has not worked… in housing, in looking for employment, for jobs.”  This, the Prime Minister said, had damaged the private sector, which must be at the forefront and that Government would create an environment to facilitate the private sector in so doing.

The very opposite is what the private sector knows to be reality, as State Enterprises continue to compete with private enterprise in the delivery of financial services, telecommunications, staple foods, jobs, health care, education, port services, insurance, mining, land development, construction, etc.  The Chamber therefore expects that Government will immediately conduct a scrupulous review of its entire “asset base” with a view to applying criteria driven by this philosophy of the Prime Minister, the objective being divestment, mergers, acquisitions, and where no feasible alternative is workable, closure, so long as this is in the interest of the country.

We turn from the conversion of the public sector enterprises to lean and mean machines ready to successfully compete in the global marketplace, to set out the concerns of the private sector with the Prime Minister’s promise to create an environment to facilitate its new role as “the driver of the economy.”

Insofar as the fiscal policy of government after government is concerned, the Chamber and other private sector organisations have submitted year after year to the panels of technocrats from the Ministry of Finance, all sorts of recommendations and proposals for inclusion in National Budgets, in order to encourage growth in the economy, jobs and productivity of our labour force, to make our goods and services more competitive, and to increase the tax net and revenues. The successes have been few and far between, and the Chamber hopes that, as the time again draws near for consultations with the private sector for its inputs to the 2011/2012 budget, our recommendations will be given serious consideration.

Apart from Tourism Minister Rupert Griffith’s recent visit to India and the efforts by Eteck and the Ministry of Trade and Industry to get the Vanguard Hotel in Tobago operational before the next winter season, just what is the strategic or master plan for tourism, the budget, the role of the private sector, the incentives etc? Government must also clarify, apart from mention in the budget, what direction it plans to take and what further work has been done with the seven sectors identified by the previous administration for development, and where new sectors have been considered, how it plans to develop them.  Is the film making industry, the entertainment market, yachting, sport and healthcare part of the present Government’s plan, as distinct from the past?  With the People’s Partnership Government having celebrated its one-year anniversary on May 24^th, the private sector calls on it to start the consultation on this holistic master plan for economic diversification so that the way forward is made clear to all.

While Government deliberates with the private sector on the foregoing, the Chamber identifies continuing drawbacks to the creation by Government of an environment to facilitate its newly recognised role

In the Chamber’s view, economist Dr. Indera Sagewan Alli is but one commentator concurring with us when she states “Unless crime is brought under control, local investors will not be encouraged to invest and set up businesses. Further, this increases the cost of doing business and more has to be spent on security.” We pause to merely welcome the 21^st Century Policing initiative in the Western Division led by Deputy Commissioner of Police Jack Ewatski, and look forward to the results of the survey of residents and business owners in a few months time.

To this, the Chamber adds, not necessarily in any order of priority, (nor is the list exhaustive) the following nagging impediments:-

1. The many challenges faced by importers at Customs and the Ports, and in particular, delays in receipt and despatch of cargo and containers from our ports. When will the long awaited ASYCUDA become operational?
2. The delay in receipt of refunds of Value Added Tax and the implementation of a system which guarantees a reduced turnaround time;
3. The unreliability of our water supply;
4. The revocation of the Ministerial Order which makes land in Tobago unavailable to foreign purchasers without a licence and which has had a devastating effect on the Tobago economy;
5. Discouraging productivity and getting the country back to work;
6. Improvement in the quality of healthcare delivery, literacy and the standard of education of primary and secondary school graduates; and
7. Speedier processing of visitors to the country at Piarco.

To this list we must add that the Chamber was pleased to witness the resolution of the stalemate between Government and the Public Services Association on salary increases for public servants. We congratulate both Government and union on the long awaited agreement and ask that negotiations with other bargaining units on behalf of police officers, prison officers, those members of NATUC, miscellaneous statutory authorities and State Enterprises be concluded to the mutual satisfaction of employer and employee without the bitterness, disruption of service to the public and hostile environment, all of which accompanied the negotiations between the CPO and the PSA.  All should take note that the 5% increase accepted by the PSA is a signal to our trading partners and competitors that collective bargaining is alive, well and driven by market forces, supply and demand, not hanging our hats higher than we can reach.