RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Busi­ness­es are con­tin­u­ing to take a fi­nan­cial hit as COVID-19 in­fec­tions and deaths con­tin­ue to climb.

So said the pres­i­dent of the Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion (Do­ma) Gre­go­ry Aboud, who yes­ter­day again called on the Gov­ern­ment to dis­cuss so­lu­tions and strate­gies with the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty as it re­lates to the man­age­ment of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Speak­ing on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day, Aboud ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment that the Gov­ern­ment had failed to con­sult with the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty.

“There have been ze­ro con­sul­ta­tions. No­body is in­ter­est­ed in hear­ing our point of view. No one is in­ter­est­ed in dis­cussing strate­gies. No one is in­ter­est­ed in find­ing so­lu­tions that in­clude the con­tri­bu­tion of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty in try­ing to lib­er­ate this coun­try from the COVID pan­dem­ic,” Aboud said.

But when asked who from the Gov­ern­ment had re­buffed them, Aboud ad­mit­ted that Do­ma had nev­er reached out to the Gov­ern­ment be­cause it did not feel it was Do­ma’s place to do so.

“I don’t know why you think it’s our du­ty to make an ap­proach. I would imag­ine that in nor­mal cir­cum­stances who­ev­er has his hand on the wheel would be the one in­ter­est­ed to con­sult and it wouldn’t be us pes­ter­ing any­body to be con­sult­ed,” Aboud said.

He added, “We ap­pre­ci­ate the dif­fi­cul­ty that the Gov­ern­ment faces and the job they did to guide the coun­try through per­ilous times. We don’t en­vy the job. But we al­so know that two heads are bet­ter than one.”

Say­ing the COVID cri­sis was deep, Aboud said many re­tail op­er­a­tors no longer had the fi­nances they had dur­ing the last lock­down.

He said de­fer­rals on loans did not mean loan for­give­ness, not­ing that a huge sub-sec­tor of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty had rents to pay. With no in­come flow­ing in be­cause of the lock­down, Aboud said many busi­ness op­er­a­tors were find­ing them­selves in fur­ther debt.

Liken­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic as a slave mas­ter that had the en­tire coun­try en­slaved with re­stric­tions, Aboud said it was time for harsh­er mea­sures to be tak­en in the short-term so that the lock­down will not con­tin­ue in the long-term.

“We are sug­gest­ing more ear­ly dras­tic mea­sures be tak­en so the pro­longed na­ture of these arrange­ments can be cir­cum­vent­ed and we will not have the dif­fi­cul­ty of a long pe­ri­od of re­stric­tion. We want to take med­i­cine ear­ly in a se­vere dose, rather than to take it in small­er amounts and have the econ­o­my locked down for too long,” he said.

He al­so used Bar­ba­dos, Grena­da and St Lu­cia as ex­am­ples of how the pan­dem­ic should be han­dled. At every step the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty in those com­mu­ni­ties was con­sult­ed, he added.

Aboud fur­ther said, “These coun­tries took swift harsh ac­tion and es­caped from the se­ri­ous sit­u­a­tion. They have re­opened the economies. They have an ad­di­tion­al fea­ture where the bor­ders are opened to al­low those who want to go away and if they be­come vac­ci­nat­ed with both vac­cines, then that vac­cine pass­port be­comes their im­me­di­ate point of ex­emp­tion to come back to their coun­try.” 

He not­ed that if Gov­ern­ment does this, it will re­duce its na­tion­al bur­den for vac­ci­na­tions. Aboud al­so said all the coun­tries that emerged suc­cess­ful in the han­dling of the pan­dem­ic had con­sult­ed with the labour and busi­ness sec­tors.

He re­it­er­at­ed that busi­ness­es were un­der im­mense pres­sure and felt dis­con­nect­ed from the poli­cies that were be­ing rolled out by the Gov­ern­ment.   

Govt to meet busi­ness bod­ies to­mor­row

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has ap­point­ed En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young to host a meet­ing with some of his Gov­ern­ment col­league and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of var­i­ous busi­ness or­gan­i­sa­tions to dis­cuss COVID-19-re­lat­ed busi­ness con­cerns.

The Gov­ern­ment made the an­nounce­ment in a re­lease yes­ter­day, say­ing the meet­ing is card­ed to take place vir­tu­al­ly to­mor­row from 10 am.

The Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ters who will be in at­ten­dance are Min­is­ter of Trade and In­dus­try Paula Gopee-Scoon, Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port Ro­han Sinanan, Min­is­ter of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Sham­fa Cud­joe, Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts Ran­dall Mitchell, and Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh.

The fol­low­ing en­ti­ties have been in­vit­ed to at­tend: T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce; T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce – To­ba­go Di­vi­sion; T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion; The Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce T&T; Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Busi­ness Cham­bers; Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chant As­so­ci­a­tion and Su­per­mar­ket As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T.

The Gov­ern­ment said it looks for­ward to the con­tin­ued col­lab­o­ra­tion with the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty to col­lec­tive­ly com­bat the chal­lenges pre­sent­ed by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic with a view to­ward eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery and growth.