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Thursday, August 28, 2025

SoE will not disrupt business activity, says Swaratsingh

by

Geisha Kowlessar-Alonzo
40 days ago
20250719
Minister of Planning, Economic Affairs & Development for Trinidad and Tobago, Senator Kennedy Swaratsingh, centre, checks to see if a shirt fits Minister of Trade, Investment & Tourism Satyakama “Kama” Maharaj during day two of the Trinidad & Tobago International Trade and Investment Convention (TIC) 2025 held at the Centre of Excellence in Macoya yesterday.

Minister of Planning, Economic Affairs & Development for Trinidad and Tobago, Senator Kennedy Swaratsingh, centre, checks to see if a shirt fits Minister of Trade, Investment & Tourism Satyakama “Kama” Maharaj during day two of the Trinidad & Tobago International Trade and Investment Convention (TIC) 2025 held at the Centre of Excellence in Macoya yesterday.

ROGER JACOB

GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

Min­is­ter of Plan­ning, Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs and De­vel­op­ment, Kennedy Swarats­ingh, said the de­c­la­ra­tion of a State of Emer­gency (SoE) yes­ter­day will not dis­rupt busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ty or im­pact in­vestor con­fi­dence whether on the do­mes­tic, re­gion­al or in­ter­na­tion­al lev­el.

“This SoE is for a spe­cif­ic pur­pose so it would not im­pact on any­thing we have here. There is no lim­it­ed move­ment of per­sons at this stage...and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly peo­ple have con­fi­dence in what this Gov­ern­ment is try­ing to do and we are very fo­cussed and very con­fi­dent in every­thing we do.

“The Prime Min­is­ter un­der her wis­dom and the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s lead­er­ship they are mak­ing sure as well that the coun­try con­tin­ues un­abat­ed and peo­ple are able to go about their dai­ly ac­tiv­i­ties,” the min­is­ter said.

He made the com­ments while tour­ing the Trade In­vest­ment Con­ven­tion (TIC) which took place at Ma­coya yes­ter­day.

Pressed fur­ther that for­eign in­vestors may be con­cerned that yet again T&T is un­der an­oth­er SoE which could ham­per busi­ness de­vel­op­ment, Swarats­ingh was adamant this was not the case.

“No on the con­trary, with this Gov­ern­ment and this Prime Min­is­ter, there is a spe­cif­ic ap­proach in mak­ing sure we ad­dress the is­sues that we face both do­mes­ti­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. So I think no. There is a lot of con­fi­dence in what we are do­ing and a lot of thought went in­to what is hap­pen­ing to­day...it should give the con­fi­dence that we are able to go about our ac­tiv­i­ties in ways that will ad­dress any is­sues we are con­front­ed with,” Swarats­ingh said.

Pres­i­dent of the T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA), Dale Par­son, who spoke to Guardian Me­dia, al­so ex­pressed con­fi­dence that the SoE would not have any neg­a­tive im­pli­ca­tions for the busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment in T&T.

In fact, Par­son said he sees the SoE as a move to tack­le crim­i­nal el­e­ments.

“I think this SoE is tar­get­ed specif­i­cal­ly at the per­pe­tra­tors. It is ac­tu­al­ly a pos­i­tive thing that the Gov­ern­ment is tak­ing proac­tive ac­tion to min­imise any kind of dis­rup­tion. I think it is a good thing and it is tar­get­ted,” he said.

On whether there was any con­cern from busi­ness­es over the SoE, Par­son said there were “dif­fer­ent re­ac­tions” with some view­ing it as a de­ter­rent to busi­ness.

“But I don’t think so. This Gov­ern­ment is very pro busi­ness, so I do not think they go­ing to do any­thing to in­ter­rupt any kind of busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ties in Trinidad,” he added.

Mean­while, Min­is­ter of Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism Satyaka­ma Ma­haraj, who al­so toured the TIC said he could not com­ment yet on the SoE as he had not “for­mu­lat­ed any ideas” about it.


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