Umanath Ma­hara­jh, com­mer­cial man­ag­er at Ansa Coat­ings Ltd, wants Gov­ern­ment to boost lo­cal paint con­tent on state-fund­ed projects and stop pur­chas­ing paint on­line.Speak­ing at the launch of a Sis­sons Colour Shop in Diego Mar­tin, he said Gov­ern­ment ex­pen­di­ture must add to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

"We must en­sure that any project fund­ed by tax­pay­ers should utilise lo­cal prod­ucts as far as pos­si­ble–lo­cal paint prod­ucts as far as pos­si­ble. No longer should we see any prime gov­ern­ment project coat­ed in for­eign paints.

"We must not pass by John Don­ald (Tech­ni­cal In­sti­tute) which is a UTT project, and see Sher­win Williams red on that build­ing. That is not cor­rect. If you want to go and paint some uni­ver­si­ty in Flori­da, you wouldn't get to go in easy. So we must be care­ful," he said.

Ma­hara­jh said the use of lo­cal prod­ucts means lo­cal added val­ue.

"There is a lot of talk about buy­ing on­line. The gov­ern­ment must not buy paint on-line. They must buy lo­cal paint and not dis­si­pate the scarce for­eign ex­change," Ma­hara­jh said.

He added that with de­pressed world en­er­gy prices, the new ad­min­is­tra­tion must do all in its pow­er to en­sure prof­its are not ex­port­ed. When Ansa Coat­ings records prof­its, he said, the com­pa­ny rein­vests to strength­en the lo­cal econ­o­my.He said the lo­cal dec­o­ra­tive paint in­dus­try em­ploys more than 1,200 work­ers in the fac­to­ries, colour shops and trans­porta­tion.

"Paint for hous­es and build­ings–not in­dus­tri­al paint, not au­to­mo­tive–is es­ti­mat­ed at $250 mil­lion a year. This is not a small in­dus­try."We have to ex­press pa­tri­o­tism...in how we do busi­ness," he said.

Ma­hara­jh al­so said the il­le­gal prac­tice of un­der in­voic­ing paints prod­ucts en­ter­ing the mar­ket was cost­ing the Trea­sury due to un­paid du­ties and called on the au­thor­i­ties to ad­just their re­laxed ap­proach to deal­ing with im­port­ed brands.