RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Prepa­ra­tion is un­der­way for the re­open­ing of the re­tail sec­tor next week but the Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Busi­ness Cham­ber says 6,000 busi­ness­es around the coun­try will re­main per­ma­nent­ly closed.

Co­or­di­na­tor of the Con­fed­er­a­tion Jai Lelad­hars­ingh told Guardian Me­dia that based on a sur­vey done by the Con­fed­er­a­tion, about 6,000 out of 17,000 small and medi­um en­ter­pris­es are fac­ing eco­nom­ic dec­i­ma­tion.

“Based on a sur­vey that the con­fed­er­a­tion did, I say 6,000 busi­ness­es are go­ing to per­ma­nent­ly shut their doors. Restau­rants, in-house din­ing, spas, beau­ty sa­lons. It is sad, es­pe­cial­ly be­cause many of these busi­ness­es are run by women. They need some help,” Lelad­hars­ingh said. 

He added, “The Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs says there are 28,000 reg­is­tered busi­ness­es in T&T . This is the for­mal sec­tor but there is al­so a large in­for­mal sec­tor that has to be stud­ied.

“ Out of that 28,000, 17,000 are mi­cro, small and medi­um en­ter­pris­es. From the 28,000, it is es­ti­mat­ed that 9,000 is from the re­tail sec­tor,” Lelad­hars­ingh said.

Not­ing that the $300 mil­lion tranche giv­en to com­mer­cial banks to as­sist SME’s were un­der­uti­lized, Lelad­hars­ingh said many felt it was an en­trap­ment.

He called on the gov­ern­ment to of­fer cheques to small busi­ness own­ers so that they could re­tool, re­stock and re­hire em­ploy­ees. 

“Busi­ness­es need tech­ni­cal as­sis­tance and cap­i­tal. We have the Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund. The gov­ern­ment could take out US$500 mil­lion, get the cheques in hands of busi­ness own­ers. The cheques come with con­di­tions to reem­ploy. They could work with char­i­ta­ble in­sti­tu­tions like TML, the Ma­ha Sab­ha to help fam­i­lies. The Her­itage Fund be­longs to the peo­ple of T&T and is not used to be used on­ly to pay pub­lic ser­vants salaries,” Lelad­hars­ingh said. 

Businessman Kelvin Levine walks down High Street with items he plans to sell from his van.

RISHI RAGOONATH

He not­ed that these cheques could be giv­en with con­di­tion­al­i­ties and strict mon­i­tor­ing could be done to en­sure that the monies were ef­fec­tive­ly used to stim­u­late busi­ness­es.

Mean­while, the Pres­i­dent of the Greater San Fer­nan­do Cham­ber of Com­merce Ki­ran Singh said 25 per cent of busi­ness­es in San Fer­nan­do will al­so re­main per­ma­nent­ly closed when the sec­tor re­opens. This rep­re­sents about 200 busi­ness­es in and around the South­ern city, Singh added.

“We con­tin­ue to bear the brunt of this eco­nom­ic bur­den. If we did not re­open on Mon­day we would have seen more clo­sure. With the re­open­ing, we ex­pect to see em­ploy­ment fig­ures ris­ing grad­u­al­ly,” he added.

Singh al­so said that busi­ness own­ers have en­gaged in al­ter­na­tive forms of gen­er­at­ing in­come. 

He al­so called for the gov­ern­ment to make VAT re­funds avail­able to busi­ness own­ers.

“We sug­gest­ed the 300 mil­lion tranche giv­en to com­mer­cial banks be used for VAT re­funds. We un­der­stand about two-thirds of that tranche has not been picked up by the SME sec­tor. We know that the gov­ern­ment is cash strapped but they can al­le­vi­ate the fi­nan­cial strain on busi­ness­es by uti­liz­ing these funds and mak­ing funds avail­able as VAT re­funds to be used im­me­di­ate­ly to re­stock and do up­grades and main­te­nance of their en­ter­pris­es,” he added.

Busi­ness own­ers try to sur­vive

Over the past 17 months, busi­ness own­ers have been do­ing door to door sales as well as on­line sales and or­ders to make ends meet. Kelvin Levine who owns Elite Wire­less said he drove as far as Ch­aguara­mas to de­liv­er or­ders.

He said when it comes to the pan­dem­ic, busi­ness own­ers have been do­ing every­thing pos­si­ble to stay afloat.

“Sev­en­ty per cent of our staff were at home and we are hap­py that the sec­tor is fi­nal­ly be­ing opened so we can bring back out our staff,” Levine said. He called on the gov­ern­ment to pro­vide favourable loans to en­tre­pre­neurs so that they can get back in­to busi­ness.

Cavell Bernard, cleans the floor of the food court at RRM Plaza, High Street, San Fernando, as they prepare to open on Monday.

RISHI RAGOONATH

Fig­ure high­er than ex­pect­ed - DO­MA

Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Gre­go­ry Aboud told Guardian Me­dia that the sta­tis­tic pro­vid­ed by Lelad­hars­ingh was high­er than he ex­pect­ed.

He said in the cap­i­tal city just about ten to 15 per cent of busi­ness­es have been per­ma­nent­ly shut.

“It seems to me to be a far high­er num­ber than I would have ex­pect­ed and I would not be able to com­ment as I have not seen the de­tails of the sur­vey done but I would not be sur­prised if it was as many as that,” Aboud said.

“We are see­ing most of those who have thrown in the tow­el are those who are small ten­ants in street to street malls and kiosk op­er­a­tors and those sorts of busi­ness­es. I would es­ti­mate in the city of Port-of-Spain about 10 per cent or 15 per cent of those small busi­ness­es,” he added.

He agreed that more could have been done by the gov­ern­ment. 

“The gov­ern­ment could have dealt with a stim­u­lus pack­age for small busi­ness­es. COVID has been a tu­mul­tuous time and a dam­ag­ing time for many. We have to pray there is no fur­ther lock­down foist­ed on us,” he added.

Last week the Re­tail­ers As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go lob­bied for the re-open­ing of the sec­tor say­ing 78,000 plus em­ploy­ees have been on the bread­line since April.

They al­so stat­ed that they have em­barked on a vac­ci­na­tion dri­ve for their em­ploy­ees and are 100 per cent com­mit­ted to im­ple­ment­ing all COVID-19 safe­ty pro­to­cols up­on re-open­ing.

When con­tact­ed for com­ment, the Min­istry of Trade said it will is­sue a state­ment on the Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Busi­ness Cham­ber’s ‘s con­cerns lat­er this week.