Jesse Ramdeo

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

The Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al is mov­ing to­wards cash­ing in on this coun­try’s fete cul­ture. On Fri­day, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi likened Trinidad and To­ba­go to Ibiza, an is­land just off Spain in the Mediter­ranean Sea, known for its live­ly nightlife, night­clubs and par­ties.

“Every­body knows Tri­nis like to fete, that is not an un­usu­al eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ty. Every­body knows of Ibiza, where the is­land is known sim­ply for its abil­i­ty to par­ty. Trinidad and To­ba­go has a phe­nom­e­nal car­ni­val which is on the world stage cen­tre, which is al­so cen­tre in the Mi­a­mi car­ni­val, the Cana­da event, the Not­tinghill event.”

Speak­ing at a pre-bud­get dis­cus­sion host­ed by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coali­tion of Ser­vices In­dus­tries, the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, Al-Rawi said if all the rel­e­vant bod­ies were syn­chro­nized and the ease of busi­ness im­proved, then there was the po­ten­tial to rake in mon­ey by mar­ket­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go as a year-round spot for fete lovers and par­ty-go­ers.

Patrons at KAIRI fete in 2020.

KERWIN PIERRE

He told the vir­tu­al gath­er­ing, that tourism ser­vices would be poised for prof­its if this was achieved. He con­firmed that ac­tive steps were be­ing tak­en to en­sure the eco­nom­ic po­ten­tial was not lost.

“We are ac­tive­ly build­ing out the ease of do­ing busi­ness, the Min­is­ter of Tourism has some ex­cit­ing projects on the ta­ble, and just re­mem­ber this, we have the fete­ing cul­ture in the world, it’s a huge in­no­v­a­tive push for some­thing that comes nat­u­ral­ly to us.”

Al-Rawi said far too long stake­hold­ers have been los­ing out due to the red tape or bu­reau­cra­cy in the in­dus­try.

“It is in­ap­pro­pri­ate and un­ac­cept­able that the EMA noise vari­a­tion per­mit, liquor li­cense per­mit, dance­hall per­mit, the Fire Ser­vice’s num­bers, the Po­lice Ser­vice’s num­bers are all in dif­fer­ent pots, a har­mo­niza­tion of that pot is un­der­tak­en and you take that sim­ple pot of one dig­i­tal plat­form, one en­try plat­form you deal with your in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty rights and you har­mo­nize that in­to one prod­uct and some­thing as sim­ple as that you bring to life an event.”

Ac­cord­ing to the AG, the Re­al Es­tate agent leg­is­la­tion will al­so pave the way for the reg­u­la­tion of Air BnB’s that will al­so bol­ster the ac­com­mo­da­tion of in­creased tourist traf­fic.

AG com­plet­ing crit­i­cal leg­is­la­tion

Mean­while, he said leg­is­la­tion to guide the man­age­ment of safe zones is near­ing com­ple­tion as the count­down is now on to the much-an­tic­i­pat­ed open­ing up of des­ig­nat­ed ar­eas on Oc­to­ber 11.

“I can tell you I am near­ly fin­ished draft­ing the reg­u­la­tions to treat with safe zones op­er­a­tions, to treat with the school en­vi­ron­ment. These reg­u­la­tions are im­mi­nent for dis­cus­sion.”