GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert has said the Gov­ern­ment will be pro­vid­ing fur­ther sup­port to small and medi­um en­ter­pris­es (SMEs) through a $300m loan pro­gramme.

This is part of Gov­ern­ment’s re­lief pro­gramme to off­set the neg­a­tive im­pact of COVID-19 and the en­tire pro­gramme is ex­pect­ed to cost the coun­try $6 bil­lion.

The SME as­sis­tance has come on the heels of con­cerns from the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty that SMEs were not re­ceiv­ing ad­e­quate fi­nan­cial sup­port from the Gov­ern­ment while pub­lic health re­stric­tions re­main in place.

Im­bert who was speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence host­ed by the Min­istry of Health ex­plained that Gov­ern­ment will sub­sidise all the in­ter­est and part of the col­lat­er­al as well on these loans.

“We can’t guar­an­tee 100 per cent be­cause it would mean small busi­ness could walk away with­out pay­ing the loans and that will just be a hit on tax­pay­ers,” Im­bert said.

The loans will be pro­vid­ed through State-owned Bank First Cit­i­zens, hence the in­ter­est rate can be con­trolled, Im­bert said.

He said mi­cro-en­ter­pris­es will al­so be giv­en ad­di­tion­al sup­port in terms of grants, as it is un­der­stood that they are less able to stand the shocks of these times.

Im­bert said the loans will be for pay­roll sup­port and he will give fur­ther de­tails next week.

Un­der the cur­rent arrange­ments, the min­is­ter said, small and medi­um en­ter­pris­es were de­fined as or­gan­i­sa­tions that had an an­nu­al turnover of $20 mil­lion per year at the high­er end.

The busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty like the T&T Cham­ber which has been very vo­cal for the sur­vival of SMEs how­ev­er, called on Im­bert to pro­vide fur­ther de­tails.

Say­ing while he is hap­py SMEs is get­ting more help, Cham­ber CEO Gabriel Faria how­ev­er, added, “We anx­ious­ly look for­ward to hear­ing the de­tails and hear­ing who will qual­i­fy and when busi­ness­es will ac­tu­al­ly get mon­ey in their hands. My con­cern is the Gov­ern­ment takes too long to move from say­ing to do­ing,”

Faria al­so wad­ed in Im­bert’s state­ments that $700m in out­stand­ing vat re­funds have been paid in cash with an­oth­er $3 bil­lion to be paid in VAT bonds.

“This mon­ey was promised since Oc­to­ber last year. So six months lat­er 15 per cent has been paid. I would like to get some more de­tails on how quick­ly they could ex­pe­dite the bal­ance.”

Faria added that Gov­ern­ment must al­so un­der­stand that re­pay­ment of an in­ter­est free loan from the pri­vate sec­tor is not a fis­cal pack­age.

The Cham­ber CEO al­so ad­vised Gov­ern­ment that while the coun­try may sur­vive COVID-19, “if the cure is not prop­er­ly ad­min­is­tered it could de­stroy us eco­nom­i­cal­ly.”