An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

A busi­ness cham­ber has ex­pressed con­cern that Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced that he is step­ping down with­out a suc­ces­sor in place and with gen­er­al elec­tions around the cor­ner. The Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Busi­ness Cham­bers (CR­BC) be­lieves this could put doubt in the minds of in­vestors.

CR­BC co­or­di­na­tor Jai Lelad­hars­ingh said: “This is cre­at­ing a lot of un­cer­tain­ty among the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty and has put a halt to do­mes­tic in­vest­ment and over the last few years we have not seen any for­eign in­vest­ment at all. Again, a wor­ri­some sit­u­a­tion.”

Weigh­ing in on the prime min­is­ter’s lega­cy To­ba­go Busi­ness Cham­ber chair­man Mar­tin George said Dr Row­ley was in­stru­men­tal in the clo­sure of Ca­roni Ltd, the Petrotrin re­fin­ery, the clo­sure of BWIA, and the sub­se­quent for­ma­tion of Caribbean Air­lines.  

“Grant­ed, all three state en­ter­pris­es were loss lead­ers and it could be ar­gued that ul­ti­mate­ly the coun­try saved mil­lions if not bil­lions by these clo­sures, it’s dif­fi­cult to hail as mon­u­men­tal suc­cess, the clos­ing down, as op­posed to the build­ing up of things,” George said.

“Sad­ly, though, he has nev­er been able to strad­dle the po­lit­i­cal di­vide, and even in the slight­est way has been able to project him­self as Prime Min­is­ter of all of T&T. He has been Prime Min­is­ter for him­self, his par­ty, his sup­port­ers, and syco­phants.  

“He missed and passed up on sev­er­al op­por­tu­ni­ties to show him­self as the big­ger man, in­stead pre­fer­ring to de­scend in­to the are­na and get in­to pet­ty squab­bles with Wat­son Duke, THA’s Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine, and oth­ers of the less­er ilk,” George added.

The pres­i­dent of the Fyz­abad Cham­ber of Com­merce wished Dr Row­ley an en­joy­able re­tire­ment.

“The PM’s de­ci­sion must be a dif­fi­cult one for him, hav­ing served as an MP for so many years, and as PM for al­most ten years. How­ev­er, Dr Row­ley may have re­alised that his lead­er­ship is not bear­ing the re­sults the cit­i­zens ex­pect­ed and de­cid­ed the time is now to bow out as MP.”

Samuel George, chair­man of the Gas­par­il­lo Cham­ber of Com­merce said any new leader has to en­gage with the peo­ple and com­mu­ni­ties.  

“He or she must put poli­cies in place that will be of ben­e­fit to the peo­ple of our coun­try. The new leader must show com­pas­sion, and em­pa­thy, and must close the ex­ist­ing chasm be­tween the gov­ern­ment and the peo­ple.”

T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce CEO Vashti Guyadeen Vashti Gayadeen said it was ad­mirable that Dr Row­ley want­ed to pri­ori­tise his fam­i­ly. Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of Com­merce pres­i­dent Bal­dath Ma­haraj said the an­nounce­ment rep­re­sents a chang­ing of the guard in T&T’s po­lit­i­cal land­scape, ush­er­ing in a pe­ri­od of re­flec­tion and tran­si­tion for the na­tion.

He said Row­ley steered the coun­try through ma­jor chal­lenges, in­clud­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, en­er­gy mar­ket volatil­i­ty, and press­ing so­cial and eco­nom­ic is­sues.  

“The Cham­ber recog­nis­es his con­tri­bu­tions and thanks him for his ser­vice and ded­i­ca­tion to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment,” he said.