Shal­iza?Has­sanali

Chi­nese na­tion­als op­er­at­ing new busi­ness­es in T&T are latch­ing on to a fast and easy mon­ey-mak­ing ven­ture–gam­bling through un­reg­u­lat­ed and un­li­cenced gam­ing ma­chines and bush whe whe that can make them tar­gets for am­bush and rob­beries. It is al­so an easy av­enue for mon­ey laun­der­ing, pres­i­dent of the San Juan Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion Abra­ham Ali said.

"Some of these peo­ple come to the coun­try and look like they don't have no mon­ey at all, and sud­den­ly you see mon­ey go­ing in­to ren­o­va­tions and the pur­chase of new and ex­ist­ing prop­er­ties. So then you know there is an as­pect of laun­der­ing."Ali said in the last three years, San Juan has be­come pop­u­lat­ed with gam­ing ma­chines which are owned by Chi­nese peo­ple.The ma­chines are strate­gi­cal­ly placed in bustling shops, where a rent and a small prof­it is paid to the own­er.

"The bulk of the win­nings are col­lect­ed by the Chi­nese," he said.The most pop­u­lar ma­chine is the one-armed ban­dit which can leave the play­er pen­ni­less, Ali said.Ali said word on the ground is that 90 per cent of the mon­ey il­le­gal­ly col­lect­ed from the ma­chines is con­vert­ed in­to US dol­lars and sent to Chi­na.

"The US dol­lars are not pur­chased from banks but at black mar­ket prices. The Chi­nese (peo­ple in­volved) can­not ap­proach the bank to buy US cur­ren­cy for a num­ber of rea­sons. For one, they have a lan­guage bar­ri­er. Sec­ond­ly, they do not own le­git­i­mate busi­ness­es to ac­quire large sums of US cur­ren­cy, so they buy it in an un­der­hand way."The Chi­nese peo­ple in­volved pay as much as $6.50 (TT) for one US dol­lar, Ali said.

"One of our main con­cerns is the ex­pa­tri­a­tion of funds. There is al­ways a big is­sue where we, as Trinida­di­ans, fight to ob­tain US cur­ren­cy from the banks; but it is be­ing sneaked out. This cre­ates a neg­a­tive ef­fect on the econ­o­my."Ali said Su­san Fran­cois, di­rec­tor of the Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit (FIU), host­ed a sem­i­nar for the San Juan busi­ness own­ers last year to sen­si­tise its 200 mem­bers about mon­ey laun­der­ing and its im­pli­ca­tions.

At the gath­er­ing, Ali said he raised the is­sue of the free move­ment of US cur­ren­cy out of T&T by Chi­nese peo­ple.He said while Fran­cois as­sured that mea­sures have been tak­en to ad­dress this, she could not di­vulge de­tails since they were sen­si­tive and con­fi­den­tial.Mean­while, pres­i­dent of the Tu­na­puna Cham­ber of Com­merce David Ed­wards is plead­ing with the au­thor­i­ties to take swift ac­tion against the il­le­gal op­er­a­tors be­fore it is too late.

Ed­wards and con­cerned mem­bers will dis­cuss the mat­ter at the cham­ber's next meet­ing.

He said while the overnight pro­lif­er­a­tion of Chi­nese restau­rants and su­per­mar­kets through­out the coun­try was a mat­ter that needs to be ad­dressed–since many of them vi­o­lat­ed health laws, re­fused to hire lo­cal labour, and kept the op­er­a­tions of their busi­ness­es se­cre­tive–what was most both­er­some was the un­reg­u­lat­ed and un­reg­is­tered roulette ma­chines and plac­ing of il­le­gal bush whe whe bets with­in the con­fines of sev­er­al bars in Tu­na­puna.

He said it was a new trend that the cham­ber has been mon­i­tor­ing, since the Gov­ern­ment was los­ing thou­sands of dol­lars in rev­enue with these un­reg­u­lat­ed ma­chines."The au­thor­i­ties need to look at this ur­gent­ly be­cause gam­bling is al­ready a se­ri­ous prob­lem in Trinidad," he said.Dur­ing the 2014 bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Lar­ry Howai de­scribed gam­bling as an emerg­ing and sub­stan­tial in­dus­try in T&T, with con­sis­tent growth in un­li­cenced and un­reg­u­lat­ed gam­ing.

Howai said un­der the cur­rent leg­isla­tive frame­work, all casi­no op­er­a­tions con­duct­ed by self-styled pri­vate mem­bers' clubs, and all gam­ing ma­chine op­er­a­tions in recre­ation clubs, pubs, ar­cades and shop­ping malls are il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties.Howai point­ed out that gam­bling has the po­ten­tial to lead to crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty and dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences for a mi­nor­i­ty of cus­tomers, in­clud­ing mi­nors and com­pul­sive gam­blers."There is a clear pub­lic need for reg­u­la­tion," Howai said.

Ed­wards said in the last year, Chi­nese na­tion­als, some of whom own restau­rants and su­per­mar­kets, have been rent­ing spaces in­side of bars in Tu­na­puna to op­er­ate roulette ma­chines:

"So far, there are four in op­er­a­tion in Tu­na­puna that I know of."

Il­le­gal gam­bling

He said they al­so use the bars to take bets on bush whe whe games, sim­i­lar to the Na­tion­al Lot­ter­ies Con­trol Board (NL­CB) Play Whe op­er­a­tions, and al­so use the NL­CB draw to make their pay­outs.Bush whe whe is an il­le­gal gam­bling game. Bets are qui­et­ly tak­en on the side, where the stake for every dol­lar is far more than the NL­CB pays its win­ners. The stakes are fur­ther in­creased if a coloured ball is played.

Of the two op­tions the play­ers have, Ed­wards said the ma­chines seem to be most­ly favoured be­cause of the high odds."The ma­chines at­tract most­ly ma­ture men. Once you win, a call would be made and the pay­ment is dropped off."Ed­wards said he wants to be­lieve that the pay­outs are not sought from banks, but are stored at the homes of those who own the ma­chines.This, he said, made Chi­nese peo­ple a tar­get since they could be eas­i­ly mon­i­tored and trailed.

Hav­ing ob­served one bar on a reg­u­lar ba­sis, Ed­wards said the gam­ing op­er­a­tion "is not bad busi­ness" for both par­ties in­volved."The bar own­er col­lects a big rent at the end of the month, and those who op­er­ate the ma­chines rake in alot of mon­ey in one night. I watched it sev­er­al times and saw peo­ple gam­ble away thou­sands of dol­lars in one go."

Ed­wards said he would love to know what the Chi­nese in­volved do with the mon­ey from the los­ing bets."I think they help bring oth­er Chi­nese here. But you have to ask what kinds of ac­tiv­i­ties is it fund­ing?"Ed­wards said he al­so no­ticed roulette ma­chines in San Juan and Curepe."They are crop­ping up all around."He said the cham­ber was will­ing to en­gage the Chi­nese busi­ness own­ers once they are here le­git­i­mate­ly.

Bartlette: I am a bit puz­zled

Pres­i­dent of the San Fer­nan­do Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion Daphne Bartlette said there were many unan­swered ques­tions about some Chi­nese na­tion­als in Trinidad.

"Why are they al­lowed to op­er­ate busi­ness­es in T&T when they can­not speak Eng­lish? What im­mi­gra­tion laws cov­er and do not cov­er them? Do we have im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers who go out and check on these peo­ple to find out what doc­u­men­ta­tion they have to stay here per­ma­nent­ly? Are they ful­fill­ing the laws and reg­u­la­tions of the coun­try? Is there an un­writ­ten law that these peo­ple can come in and set up shop?"

Bartlette said that for years these ques­tions have re­mained unan­swered.She said she was a bit puz­zled by the Chi­nese in­flux. "It's a bit hazy as to what is re­al­ly hap­pen­ing. I am not sure what laws are be­ing over­looked.

"What the mem­bers are al­so say­ing is that they are giv­ing tremen­dous com­pe­ti­tion to the bona fide busi­ness own­ers. Every­where you turn there is a new busi­ness. We asked the past and cur­rent gov­ern­ments to find out what is caus­ing the pro­lif­er­a­tion of these ex­pa­tri­ates, be­cause they are cer­tain­ly not sec­ond-gen­er­a­tion Chi­nese."Bartlette said it was a known fact that sev­er­al Chi­nese restau­rants that did not ad­here to prop­er health stan­dards were shut down by health in­spec­tors in South.

She said what both­ered her was the is­sue with our for­eign ex­change. "I al­ways say we should guard our for­eign ex­change in a way that we would not have wan­ton spend­ing or leak­age."Bartlette said what was al­so strange was that none of the Chi­nese busi­ness own­ers had ap­proached the as­so­ci­a­tion to be­come mem­bers.

Bood­hu: Trinida­di­ansnot am­bi­tious like Chi­nese

In­ter­im pres­i­dent of the San­gre Grande Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion Ken­neth Bood­hu said be­fore wel­com­ing the Chi­nese to T&T, the Gov­ern­ment should en­sure that they pay and file tax­es, make NIS con­tri­bu­tions, and em­ploy lo­cal labour."I am sug­gest­ing that tax of­fi­cers vis­it these busi­ness­es to au­dit them to en­sure that they op­er­ate legal­ly. Are these peo­ple com­ing here and are not be­ing reg­u­lat­ed? This is hard to tell be­cause no one is keep­ing tabs on them."

He said if there was no reg­u­la­tion, leg­is­la­tion needs to be draft­ed to en­sure that they op­er­ate with­in the law.Bood­hu said they should not on­ly source labour with­in their fam­i­lies, but give lo­cals an op­por­tu­ni­ty to work in their es­tab­lish­ments.In the last sev­en years, Bood­hu said at least ten Chi­nese restau­rants were es­tab­lished in San­gre Grande with lit­tle or no com­plaint from the as­so­ci­a­tion.

He said the same way Trinida­di­ans go to USA, Cana­da and Eng­land to open busi­ness­es, he did not see a prob­lem with Chi­nese com­ing here to do the same."I see noth­ing wrong with these peo­ple com­ing in and set­ting up busi­ness­es in Trinidad. If we Trinida­di­ans can em­u­late their work eth­ic, we can in­crease pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. They are con­tribut­ing to the up­lift­ment of our town."

Bood­hu said while peo­ple have been frown­ing at the grow­ing num­ber of Chi­nese busi­ness­es, Trinida­di­ans are just not as am­bi­tious as they are."The Chi­nese are tak­ing ad­van­tage of op­por­tu­ni­ties. They work very hard. I think we should em­brace them."

Nan­cis: Treat­ev­ery­thing with cau­tion

Pres­i­dent of the Ari­ma Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion Eu­stace Nan­cis said while the in­crease of Chi­nese busi­ness­es in the cor­po­ra­tion has not been dis­cussed by mem­bers, "it is al­ways a con­cern to see the num­ber of them crop­ping up here, there and every­where."He said, "We just have to ob­serve it and treat every­thing with cau­tion."

Nan­cis said while Ari­ma has sev­er­al es­tab­lished Chi­nese busi­ness­es for years, new ones are pop­ping up, main­ly restau­rants."How much Chi­nese food can one eat?"Nan­cis said the au­thor­i­ties need to mon­i­tor these restau­rants to al­so en­sure prop­er health stan­dards are met.

Sookhai: Huge pres­ence of Chi­nese in Ch­agua­nas

Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of Com­merce pres­i­dent Ritchie Sookhai al­so con­firmed that Ch­agua­nas has a "huge pres­ence of Chi­nese busi­ness­es."He said the own­ers of the new wave of Chi­nese su­per­mar­kets, casi­nos and restau­rants in Ch­agua­nas had not ap­proached the cham­ber to be­come mem­bers, nor have they lodged any com­plaints.Sookhai could not say if the new Chi­nese busi­ness own­ers have been op­er­at­ing legal­ly or il­le­gal­ly, were grant­ed work per­mits or im­port li­cences.

Aboud: Chi­nese cre­at­ing strong com­pet­i­tive en­vi­ron­ment

Pres­i­dent of the Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chants' As­so­ci­a­tion (Do­ma) Gre­go­ry Aboud al­so con­firmed an in­flux of "new Chi­nese busi­ness­es open­ing in the down­town area," but said that on­ly the old­er Chi­nese busi­ness­es form the core of Do­ma.

"The fam­i­ly busi­ness mod­el is at the heart of the suc­cess of the Chi­nese com­mu­ni­ty, and this mod­el has proven it­self to be a suc­cess­ful con­cept for cen­turies. We should not de­spise the Chi­nese com­mu­ni­ty. What we should do is em­u­late this mod­el, where a strong fam­i­ly busi­ness mod­el can lead to a strong coun­try."He feels the in­vest­ment the Chi­nese busi­ness­es are mak­ing can be seen in a pos­i­tive light.

"These new en­trants should be re­quired to fol­low all the con­di­tions un­der which lo­cal busi­ness­es op­er­ate and in this way, they can con­tribute to­wards the fur­ther de­vel­op­ment of towns and cities."Aboud said while it is true that these Chi­nese have been cre­at­ing a tough com­pet­i­tive en­vi­ron­ment for those who may have been ac­cus­tomed to high­er mar­gins, "by the same to­ken they have many lessons to teach us with re­spect to their work ethics."

Ma­haraj: Some Chi­ne­sesu­per­mar­kets pay no tax­es

For­mer pres­i­dent of the Su­per­mar­ket As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (Satt) Ku­mar Ma­haraj feels that some Chi­nese na­tion­als come to T&T to set up busi­ness­es in or­der to ac­quire suf­fi­cient mon­ey to ob­tain per­ma­nent res­i­den­cy in Cana­da.Ma­haraj said all that was need­ed for a Chi­nese na­tion­al to be­come a per­ma­nent res­i­dent in Cana­da was $100,000 Cana­di­an.

How­ev­er, a check on the Web site www.cana­davisa.com/pnp-busi­ness-im­mi­gra­tion, re­vealed that "cer­tain provinces have their own busi­ness im­mi­gra­tion pro­grammes with­in their Provin­cial Nom­i­na­tion Pro­grammes (PNP) where cer­tain Cana­di­an provinces will nom­i­nate ap­pli­cants for per­ma­nent res­i­den­cy un­der their Busi­ness Im­mi­gra­tion Pro­gramme."

Un­der the PNP, the Web site stat­ed that a de­posit of $100,000 Cana­di­an is re­quired for the province of Man­i­to­ba, but this has since been sus­pend­ed.Any­one en­ter­ing Cana­da must have a visa.Ma­haraj, who owns and op­er­ates West Side Su­per­mar­ket in Ari­ma, said he count­ed 36 new Chi­nese su­per­mar­kets from Ari­ma to San Juan, many of which em­ploy "their own fam­i­ly."

He said the Chi­nese had sev­er­al ad­van­tages: they live on the premis­es of their busi­ness­es, did not pay for se­cu­ri­ty, and opened ex­tend­ed hours."So their over­heads costs are sig­nif­i­cant­ly less."He feels soon­er rather than lat­er, the na­tion­al econ­o­my will pay a price for this.While some cus­tomers ad­mit­ted that the Chi­nese su­per­mar­kets of­fered cheap­er prices on goods, Ma­haraj dis­agreed, stat­ing that the prices at lo­cal su­per­mar­kets were just as com­pet­i­tive.

Ma­haraj al­so al­leged that some of the Chi­nese "pay no tax­es and they have no bank­ing ac­counts."New­ly-elect­ed Satt pres­i­dent Dr Yunus Ibrahim, of Ramish and Leela Su­per­mar­ket, re­fused to com­ment on the grow­ing num­ber of Chi­nese su­per­mar­kets be­cause he said the top­ic was "close to the heart of the su­per­mar­ket as­so­ci­a­tion" and was a "tricky" one to an­swer.

–with re­port­ing by Neal Ras­mine