JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Wednesday, May 21, 2025

SATT’s budget wish list: More anti-crime measures, lower corporate taxes

by

Gail Alexander
609 days ago
20230920
Supermarket Association President Rajiv Diptee

Supermarket Association President Rajiv Diptee

The Su­per­mar­kets As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (SATT) has rec­om­mend­ed that plans to sup­port the crime-fight­ing ef­forts of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), in­clud­ing mak­ing firearms users’ li­cences (FUL) avail­able to those who qual­i­fy, be in­clud­ed in the 2024 Bud­get

SATT pres­i­dent Ra­jiv Diptee said these were among the rec­om­men­da­tions made for in­clu­sion in the fis­cal pack­age to be pre­sent­ed by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert on Oc­to­ber 2.

Cit­ing T&T’s crime cri­sis, the mur­der rate, and at­tacks on busi­ness­places, Diptee said FULs are need­ed.

“We need to know im­prove­ments that are be­ing made for re­sourc­ing TTPS and lo­cal com­mu­ni­ty po­lice whose in­put is vi­tal. We of­ten hear about the po­lice lack­ing re­sources,” he said.

“The pub­lic needs to hear what’s be­ing done on plans to sup­port the au­thor­i­ties’ an­ti-crime bat­tle on cit­i­zens’ be­half, in­clud­ing mak­ing FULs avail­able to busi­ness peo­ple who ful­fill the re­quire­ments. If one sat­is­fies this, in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s high-risk en­vi­ron­ment, we would like to know we can get FULs. There’s a high in­ci­dence of peo­ple be­ing tar­get­ed or at­tacked by crim­i­nals. They’re com­ing in places armed and hold­ing.

“We al­so need to hear how cor­rup­tion in the po­lice ser­vice is go­ing to be dealt with and there’s a need for tax breaks on se­cu­ri­ty equip­ment be­yond cam­eras.”

Diptee said su­per­mar­kets con­tin­ue to feel that the econ­o­my is still in re­cov­ery af­ter the pan­dem­ic and there is a need for spend­ing to “en­er­gise the land­scape”.

SATT would like to see a re­duc­tion in cor­po­rate tax­es and for at­ten­tion to be paid to Cus­toms’ over­charg­ing on con­tain­ers.

“Al­so, at­ten­tion is need­ed to ap­prove plans at Town and Coun­try. Plan­ning ap­provals process­es are te­dious and slow,” he said.

“It’s al­so been brought to my at­ten­tion that du­ties and tax­es on su­per­mar­ket equip­ment have in­creased and the sec­tor de­sires that this be re­vis­it­ed.”

He called for greater ef­forts in the agri­cul­ture and agro-pro­cess­ing sec­tors to re­duce the food im­port bill. SATT al­so sug­gest­ed that at­ten­tion be paid to in­fra­struc­ture in com­mu­ni­ties.

“If some­thing is giv­en back that will be great. There’s al­so need for train­ing cours­es. The Na­tion­al Train­ing Agency start­ed and stopped,” Diptee said.

Bud­get must ad­dress wa­ter cri­sis

Princes Town MP Bar­ry Padarath wants Im­bert to ad­dress gov­ern­ment’s debts to T&TEC and WASA, state how the Gov­ern­ment in­tends to boost wa­ter pro­duc­tion in light of the con­tin­u­ing wa­ter cri­sis, and de­tail ma­jor in­fra­struc­tur­al works in the pub­lic util­i­ty sec­tor.

He said that for WASA and T&TEC to sur­vive, the Gov­ern­ment must set­tle bil­lions of dol­lars in ar­rears to both com­pa­nies. Padarath re­cent­ly re­ceived in­for­ma­tion from the Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­istry that $1.4 bil­lion was owed by state agen­cies to TTEC as of May 31. He said any move to pass on that bur­den to con­sumers “would be re­sist­ed.”

“The min­is­ter must ar­tic­u­late a clear path to ad­dress­ing the debts of the State to crit­i­cal in­sti­tu­tions. These debts have state com­pa­nies in their cur­rent dire sit­u­a­tion to­day. The Bud­get shouldn’t be used to im­pose fur­ther hard­ship on cit­i­zens, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the pub­lic util­i­ties sec­tor, when cit­i­zens are al­ready be­ing asked to pay for a ser­vice that many don’t sat­is­fac­to­ri­ly re­ceive.

“Gov­ern­ment shouldn’t im­ple­ment any new rates for WASA and T&TEC at this time but in­stead make the state com­pa­nies vi­able and sus­tain­able or­gan­i­sa­tions by pay­ing their debts to them,” Padarath said.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored