Rishard Khan

rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

Stake­hold­ers are sat­is­fied with the Prime Min­is­ter’s de­ci­sion to stop Safe Zones on April 4, be­liev­ing it to be long over­due.

How­ev­er, for them it’s a chance for eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery.

Restau­rater Pe­ter George was among the first to call for an end to safe zones and is pleased to hear of its abo­li­tion. He be­lieves the road ahead to­wards eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery re­quires “cre­ative and in­no­v­a­tive lead­er­ship and de­ci­sion mak­ing” to re­sus­ci­tate the econ­o­my.

“The safe zones be­ing wound up was long over-due and wel­comed. The ques­tion re­al­ly re­mains now– what busi­ness­es and the so­ci­ety faces now as we re­build?” he told Guardian Me­dia.

“Our in­sti­tu­tions are weak, our sup­port ser­vices are week, our in­fra­struc­ture is poor so there are go­ing to be some chal­lenges. You still have mas­sive for­eign ex­change chal­lenges which have yet to be ad­dressed—the can is sim­ply be­ing kicked down the road. There is a lot of dark clouds hang­ing over our en­er­gy sec­tor…what we face from an in­fla­tion­ary per­spec­tive in the next three to six months when it comes to ba­si­cal­ly things like food. So there are a lot of ques­tions that are hang­ing over us.”

Movie Towne own­er Derek Chin shared George’s sen­ti­ments that Safe Zones should have end­ed long ago, the way for­ward will not see im­me­di­ate eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery. He be­lieves the Gov­ern­ment may need to as­sist small­er busi­ness­es.

“A lot of busi­ness­es and small­er op­er­a­tors are in need of some valid as­sis­tance to re­cov­er. There is a need for some stim­u­lus in the econ­o­my and in­cen­tives to build back lives of many peo­ple who are suf­fer­ing the fall out of these past hard­ships and now very dif­fi­cult eco­nom­ic times,” he said.

The pres­i­dent of the Coali­tion of Bars and Restau­rants Teron Mo­han, how­ev­er, lament­ed that the dam­age may be per­ma­nent for many but the end­ing of safe zones could help oth­er stay afloat.

“We may nev­er ac­tu­al­ly re­cu­per­ate,” Mo­han not­ed.

“But what it will do (Safe Zone abo­li­tion) it will help us get back on track with some of our short­falls from the past. In many sce­nar­ios right now, many peo­ple had to ask for de­fer­rals from the bank, de­fer­rals from the util­i­ty com­pa­nies and some of them still try­ing to catch up on that. With this op­por­tu­ni­ty open­ing up here, they may be able to fast track some of those debts- just to get our heads above wa­ter,” Mo­han added,

Un­like oth­er stake­hold­ers, pres­i­dent of the Down­town Own­ers’ and Mer­chants’ As­so­ci­a­tion (DO­MA) Gre­go­ry Aboud be­lieves the abo­li­tion of Safe Zones and re­lax­ing of oth­er re­stric­tions came at the right time.

He shares the be­lief that the Gov­ern­ment has work to do in help­ing busi­ness­es re­cu­per­ate. For him, it be­gins with im­prov­ing the ease of do­ing busi­ness.

“There is def­i­nite­ly a need to im­prove the ef­fi­cien­cy by which busi­ness­es are al­lowed to op­er­ate. There are a lot of com­ments in the pub­lic do­main about the dif­fi­cul­ty in do­ing busi­ness, par­tic­u­lar­ly the en­gage­ment of the pub­lic ser­vice,” he said.

“The pub­lic ser­vice and pub­lic of­fi­cers need to rec­og­nize that they have a crit­i­cal role in help­ing to re­sus­ci­tate the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, in help­ing to re­sus­ci­tate eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty.” Aboud said

For Chin, the end of Safe Zones al­so sig­nals an end to what he called the po­lice’s “bul­ly­ing tac­tics.”

Chin said, “There were so many con­tra­dic­tions and hypocrisy and ques­tions about the safe zone ef­fec­tive­ness that turned off the gen­er­al pub­lic. Busi­ness­es were forced to com­ply or not be able to op­er­ate at all, de­spite many ques­tions. The in­tim­i­da­tion and lack of the po­lice in deal­ing with these safe zones left a lot to be de­sired. To­tal­ly ig­no­rant and no dis­cre­tions in han­dling their checks al­so turned off the vac­ci­nat­ed pa­trons. Bul­ly­ing tac­tics and com­ing to check with sub-ma­chine guns was a ma­jor turn off. Like a gestapo style to­tal­ly un­nec­es­sary to check ‘vac­ci­na­tions’. This was why we were a laugh­ing­stock from oth­er coun­tries when they heard about these ‘tac­tics’!” he told Guardian Me­dia in a What­sApp mes­sage yes­ter­day.

Mo­han was al­so hap­py the “dis­crim­i­na­tion” be­tween vac­ci­nat­ed and un­vac­ci­nat­ed pa­trons will now come to an end.

Go­ing for­ward, Chin be­lieves the Gov­ern­ment needs to im­prove its ap­proach in treat­ing with the pri­vate sec­tor.

“Gov­ern­ment needs to im­prove its re­la­tions and com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the busi­ness and pri­vate sec­tors of the coun­try and work in uni­son to get Trinidad back on track. It’s not you ver­sus us ap­proach. This has been one of the main con­cerns with this Gov­ern­ment,” he said.

Chin en­dorsed the need for peo­ple to be re­spon­si­ble in their ac­tions by stay­ing vig­i­lant and get­ting vac­ci­nat­ed.

The Bar­keep­ers’ and Own­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (BOATT) pres­i­dent Satesh Moonasar echoed the need for the pop­u­la­tion’s re­spon­si­ble be­hav­iour.

He said, “The re­spon­si­bil­i­ty is now in the hands of the pop­u­la­tion. Al­so, the busi­ness own­ers need to ac­cept some re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to keep things in a cer­tain lev­el and try to main­tain it prop­er­ly but gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, its in­to the hands of the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion and are ask­ing that we do our part to keep things mov­ing in the right di­rec­tion so we could have the econ­o­my open and bal­ance lives and liveli­hoods so we will not have to re­turn to any form of re­stric­tions or lock­down.”

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said on Sat­ur­day that re­stric­tions can be re­in­sti­tut­ed should the out­break de­vi­ate from its cur­rent tra­jec­to­ry.

“If, God for­bid, that hap­pens to us, it would be fol­ly to say well we did open up and now the door can’t close. We will re­spond to the virus re­spon­si­bly, de­pend­ing on the na­ture of the threat it pos­es to the pop­u­la­tion,” he then said.

Row­ley added, “Our cir­cum­stances are con­sid­er­ably im­proved but we are not in a po­si­tion to say that the pan­dem­ic is over or that the in­fec­tion threat is en­dem­ic, and we can no go on and ig­nore COVID-19 and its vari­ants.”

“We are now in a po­si­tion to say that the preser­va­tion of life seems to be some­thing that we can take cred­it for and we need to do more on the side of the equa­tion of pre­serv­ing liveli­hoods,” he said.

While the coun­try is in a favourable po­si­tion in terms of dai­ly cas­es and deaths, health ex­perts fear this can eas­i­ly change with the in­tro­duc­tion of an­oth­er vari­ant or if the pop­u­la­tion is not care­ful.

The stake­hold­ers all be­lieve it will take an im­mense ef­fort and some time for their sec­tors to re­cov­er from the pan­dem­ic’s eco­nom­ic fall­out.

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