SHAS­TRI BOODAN

Ex­ec­u­tive chair­man of the Had­co Group John Hadad says the Gov­ern­ment needs to be more con­sis­tent with its eco­nom­ic poli­cies. He said in­vestors are hold­ing back be­cause they fear that poli­cies may change when ad­min­is­tra­tions change.Hadad, who spoke with the T&T Guardian fol­low­ing the launch of Had­co's $20 mil­lion elec­tri­cal and light­ing di­vi­sion at Point Lisas on Thurs­day, said the role of the Gov­ern­ment is to cre­ate poli­cies to stim­u­late busi­ness.

"It has been a bit blurred over the years–what the role of the Gov­ern­ment is, and what the role of the pri­vate sec­tor is. I think if every­one gets their role prop­er­ly, we would op­er­ate bet­ter in a free-mar­ket econ­o­my. We would op­er­ate a lit­tle more ef­fi­cient­ly in terms of see­ing in­vest­ments from the pri­vate sec­tor and see­ing job cre­ation," he said.

Hadad said change in poli­cies from ad­min­is­tra­tion to ad­min­is­tra­tion has caused in­vestors to hold back. He sug­gest­ed that poli­cies not be al­tered to fa­cil­i­tate cer­tain groups but in­stead be fo­cused on cre­at­ing and at­tract­ing in­vest­ment.

He ex­plained: "If the Gov­ern­ment gets in­volved in the reg­u­la­to­ry side of things, and the stim­u­la­tion side of things and does that job prop­er­ly with­out be­ing di­rect­ly in­volved in busi­ness, or with­out try­ing to change pol­i­cy from one ad­min­is­tra­tion to the oth­er, we would see more con­fi­dence com­ing from the pri­vate sec­tor."Hadad said among the chal­lenges fac­ing lo­cal busi­ness­men was pres­sure on the ports to clear con­tain­ers. He said the process can still take as much as two weeks.

Adelle Pul­chan, man­ag­er of Had­co's Point Lisas op­er­a­tions, said the com­pa­ny en­tered the area a decade ago and was based at the DSM Com­plex."Af­ter some years of search­ing with­in the es­tate we were able to ac­quire this prop­er­ty and in the usu­al Had­co tra­di­tion of grace and sim­plic­i­ty, the trans­for­ma­tion be­gan, from an old steel fac­to­ry in­to this tru­ly mag­nif­i­cent fa­cil­i­ty in which we stand to­day."