Com­ing on the heels of ma­jor top-lev­el ex­ec­u­tive an­nounce­ments across Re­pub­lic Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings Ltd (RFHL), the Port-of-Spain-head­quar­tered re­gion­al bank­ing group con­firmed that Ed­ward Ince, a di­rec­tor of its T&T sub­sidiary Re­pub­lic Bank Ltd, had re­signed.

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s eco­nom­ic out­look, the Gov­ern­ment’s fis­cal con­straints and un­re­solved pub­lic ser­vice back­pay oblig­a­tions are com­ing un­der scruti­ny as econ­o­mists and a for­mer min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance weigh in on whether the coun­try’s re­ces­sion should be the cen­tral con­cern.

The Gov­ern­ment has grant­ed min­ing and pro­cess­ing li­cences to Stud­ley Park En­ter­prise Ltd (SPEL), paving the way for ex­pand­ed quar­ry op­er­a­tions in To­ba­go and what it says can bring jobs, in­vest­ment and in­creased eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty to the is­land.

Re­pub­lic Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings Lim­it­ed (RFHL) yes­ter­day an­nounced two ex­ec­u­tive ap­point­ments, with Paras­ram (Vic) Sal­ick­ram and David Robin­son set to take up se­nior po­si­tions at the fi­nan­cial hold­ings com­pa­ny and its T&T sub­sidiary Re­pub­lic Bank Ltd from Jan­u­ary 1, 2027, sub­ject to reg­u­la­to­ry ap­provals.

The In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund (IMF) yes­ter­day re­flect­ed a World Bank re­port last week that the T&T econ­o­my de­clined by mi­nus 0.5 per cent last year and is pro­ject­ed to ex­pe­ri­ence re­al growth of 0.2 per cent this year.

Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor Lar­ry Howai has called for a bal­anced and co­or­di­nat­ed glob­al ap­proach to reg­u­lat­ing cryp­to as­sets, warn­ing that while dig­i­tal as­sets present op­por­tu­ni­ties for greater fi­nan­cial in­clu­sion, they al­so pose risks to fi­nan­cial sta­bil­i­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly for small open economies like T&T.

Re­pub­lic Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings Ltd (RFHL) has re­versed its pub­licly an­nounced suc­ces­sion plan, re­plac­ing Richard Sam­my with Karen Yip Chuck less than nine months af­ter nam­ing him to suc­ceed Nigel Bap­tiste as head of the re­gion­al bank­ing group gi­ant.

Richard Sam­my, the em­bat­tled group vice pres­i­dent of Re­pub­lic Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings Ltd (RFHL), de­part­ed the re­gion's largest fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion on Wednes­day, bank sources told Guardian Me­dia.

The Gov­ern­ment is sig­nalling a stronger fo­cus on trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty in pub­lic spend­ing, as it has in­creased fund­ing for the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion (OPR) by 25 per cent in fis­cal 2027 as the agency con­tin­ues to raise con­cerns about weak­ness­es in the coun­try’s pro­cure­ment sys­tem.

On this mo­men­tous 68th an­niver­sary of In­ter­na­tion­al Cred­it Union Day, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coali­tion of Ser­vices In­dus­tries (TTC­SI) ex­tends our warmest, most heart­felt con­grat­u­la­tions to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Co-op­er­a­tive Cred­it Union League and the vi­brant cred­it union move­ment span­ning our beau­ti­ful twin-is­land na­tion.

Staff at the La Brea In­dus­tri­al De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (Labid­co) were blind­sided by the an­nounce­ment by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in To­ba­go on Tues­day that the com­pa­ny was be­ing con­sid­ered for di­vest­ment along­side Na­tion­al Quar­ries, Hilton Trinidad, the Mag­dale­na Grand Beach and Golf Re­sort.

For busi­ness­es in Trinidad and To­ba­go, the most con­se­quen­tial bud­get mea­sures are those that change how much cash they must re­tain, what it costs to op­er­ate and when they can af­ford to in­vest. The 2027 Bud­get presents op­por­tu­ni­ties for growth along­side pro­pos­als that could in­crease the in­ci­dent of tax­a­tion on busi­ness prof­its and greater com­pli­ance de­mands.