An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Africa Busi­ness Group chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Michael Su­dark­asa is re­it­er­at­ing the call to join the African Ex­port-Im­port Bank (Afrex­im­bank) say­ing this would great­ly ben­e­fit T&T’s econ­o­my and cit­i­zens.

Su­dark­asa was re­spond­ing to con­cerns raised by Prime Min­is­ter Dr. Kei­th Row­ley in June, that the Gov­ern­ment has not joined most of its re­gion­al neigh­bours in sign­ing up to Afrex­im­bank, be­cause the fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion wants its em­ploy­ees based in T&T, both lo­cal and for­eign, to earn tax-free salaries.

Row­ley not­ed that the dif­fi­cul­ty be­ing ex­pe­ri­enced with Afrex­im­bank is that the bank is ask­ing for all its staff to earn tax-free salaries in this coun­try.

“I do not know why the bank is tak­ing that po­si­tion, but that is the bank’s po­si­tion, that its staff whether lo­cal or for­eign, would not pay tax in the coun­try. That has far-reach­ing con­se­quences be­cause it is against the ex­ist­ing arrange­ments of priv­i­leges, im­mu­ni­ties and poli­cies.

“We have sev­er­al in­ter­na­tion­al agen­cies that re­side in Trinidad and To­ba­go and con­duct busi­ness here. The law and the poli­cies are if you are a for­eign­er work­ing with the agency, you will not be taxed in T&T, but lo­cal peo­ple work­ing for the UN or the OAS, you are tax­able in this coun­try,” the prime min­is­ter ex­plained.

How­ev­er, Su­dark­asa told Guardian me­dia on Wednes­day said while it is not in his place to tell Dr Row­ley what to do, he cit­ed the cost ben­e­fits of hav­ing ac­cess to the re­sources from the Afrex­im­bank.

“Afrex­im­bank is a mul­ti­lat­er­al in­sti­tu­tion, in all the coun­tries where it has a pres­ence. The staff are paid on a tax-free ba­sis. To my ad­van­tage point, if you do the short to long term ben­e­fit, the pros of be­ing part of the bank far out­weigh any cons. It's not every­body that shows up in any coun­try and says I want to have my staff work for tax-free dol­lars. It is mul­ti­lat­er­als,” Su­dark­asa dis­closed.

The CEO not­ed that he lives in South Africa and when the African De­vel­op­ment Bank, an­oth­er mul­ti­lat­er­al fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion, want­ed to bring its staff and set up busi­ness in the coun­try to earn tax-free salaries, it took about five years for the Gov­ern­ment to ap­prove this move.

“It took time for South Africa to re­flect on the pros and cons and whether it made sense,” he said.

Speak­ing on the pan­el of the An­nu­al Trans-At­lantic Trade and In­vest­ment Sym­po­sium at the Hy­att Re­gency,on Wednes­day, Roger Roach, pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) agreed that the Afrex­im­bank would pro­vide op­por­tu­ni­ties for small and medi­um-sized en­ter­pris­es (SMEs).

Last Au­gust, the bank opened a Cari­com of­fice in Bar­ba­dos.

It said the Afrex­im­bank Cair­com of­fice will sup­port the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the part­ner­ship agree­ment be­tween Afrex­im­bank and Cari­com mem­ber states aimed at ex­pand­ing Africa-Caribbean trade and in­vest­ment re­la­tions.  

“This move ce­ments Afrex­im­bank’s ef­forts to pro­mote and de­vel­op trade be­tween Africa and the Caribbean, in line with its di­as­po­ra strat­e­gy and the African Union’s des­ig­na­tion of the African Di­as­po­ra as Africa’s sixth re­gion,” the bank said in a news re­lease then.