Raphael John-Lall

raphael.lall@guardian.co.tt

CEO of the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce Gabriel Faria re­mains hope­fulof a re­duc­tion in COVID-19 cas­es fall so that pub­lic health re­stric­tions can be re­laxed be­fore Ju­ly 4.

“We recog­nise the need for the ex­ten­sion at this time and al­so note the con­cern about ca­su­al in­ter­ac­tion and er­rant be­hav­iour. We are hope­ful that if the sit­u­a­tion im­proves con­sid­er­a­tion would be giv­en to re­lax­ing re­stric­tions ear­li­er,” he said in an ini­tial re­ac­tion to an ex­ten­sion in pub­lic health re­stric­tions.

Faria said many busi­ness have in­vest­ed and de­vel­oped their dig­i­tal in­fra­struc­ture to fa­cil­i­tate ser­vic­ing cus­tomers through curb­side pick­up and de­liv­ery ser­vices. He be­lieves that these are con­tact­less, low den­si­ty and much safer than peo­ple crowd­ing out­side busi­ness­es.

“We al­so be­lieve there needs to be eq­ui­ty in the way the re­stric­tions on busi­ness­es are ap­plied. It is un­for­tu­nate that we have re­stric­tions on lo­cal busi­ness while for­eign com­pa­nies sup­ply­ing sim­i­lar prod­ucts are able to op­er­ate with­out re­stric­tion­sm” he said.

“We have al­so heard about sup­port for in­di­vid­u­als but there are thou­sands of busi­ness­es which are sig­nif­i­cant­ly im­pact­ed, some closed for close to 15 months, and there has been mar­gin­al if any sup­port pro­vid­ed.”

Faria added: “We are meet­ing with our ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee of the board to dis­cuss how we can help en­cour­age re­spon­si­ble be­hav­iour and en­gage the Gov­ern­ment to work more col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly with the pri­vate sec­tor for the ben­e­fit of T&T.”

Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion’s (DO­MA) Pres­i­dent Gre­go­ry Aboud said he had no “quar­rel” with the Gov­ern­ment’s lat­est de­ci­sion.

“There is the dras­tic state of af­fairs which still ex­ists vis-a-vis the high in­fec­tion rate and al­so the fright­en­ing num­ber of per­sons who are dy­ing from COVID-19 at this time and there­fore we could not find any rea­son to quar­rel with the need for a con­tin­u­a­tion of the mea­sures which are cur­rent­ly en­forced,” he said.

Aboud sug­gest­ed a re­view of the cur­rent re­stric­tions so that the next time that cit­i­zens learn of the rules and reg­u­la­tions gov­ern­ing ac­tiv­i­ty would not be on Ju­ly 4.

He al­so sug­gest­ed that na­tion­als be al­lowed to trav­el abroad to get vac­ci­nat­ed as is cur­rent­ly be­ing done in some oth­er Caribbean coun­tries.

“We know for a fact that this is work­ing to help stim­u­late not on­ly an ex­pan­sion in the num­ber of cit­i­zens who would be vac­ci­nat­ed but al­so to stim­u­late some move­ment across the bor­ders of prop­er­ly vac­ci­nat­ed peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly cit­i­zens which would help the econ­o­my to re­open.

“So that the strat­e­gy is to re­duce the bur­den on Gov­ern­ment vac­ci­na­tion by al­low­ing those who can go over­seas to be vac­ci­nat­ed and then giv­ing those per­sons who are du­ly vac­ci­nat­ed twice in­clud­ing for­eign­ers who have the two vac­cines and the neg­a­tive PCR, to en­ter the coun­try. We know this has been suc­cess­ful in some of the ju­ris­dic­tions in the Caribbean.”

How­ev­er, own­er of the Trent Restau­rant Group, Pe­ter George Jr, said he was “deeply dis­turbed” by the Gov­ern­ment’s lat­est de­ci­sion.

“This means al­most two months of emer­gency pow­ers. That is an ex­treme­ly desta­bil­is­ing thing. Cit­i­zens are un­aware that a state of emer­gency is not just a cur­few, it’s a sus­pen­sion of the Con­sti­tu­tion.

“I don’t un­der­stand why we need to have a sus­pen­sion of the Con­sti­tu­tion for two months.

“There is still no mean­ing­ful in­ter­ven­tion by this Gov­ern­ment to help peo­ple and help busi­ness­es. Min­is­ter Im­bert spoke about $5 bil­lion in re­lief and that in­cludes $3 bil­lion in VAT bonds, which is mon­ey they owed to cit­i­zens in the first place. At the end of this if our econ­o­my does not have jet fu­el to take off, we will have se­ri­ous prob­lems,” George said.