There was no great rush to hard­ware stores, book­stores and arts and craft shops as these busi­ness­es re­opened for the first time in weeks. How­ev­er, it was a re­lief for home­own­ers ur­gent­ly need­ing plumb­ing and elec­tri­cal sup­plies to car­ry out re­pairs.

These busi­ness­es were ready for busi­ness by 8 am, en­sur­ing that cus­tomers obeyed the re­quired health pro­to­cols of hand­wash­ing, tem­per­a­ture checks, mask-wear­ing and phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing.

Ri­car­do Peyrau, man­ag­er at Dansteel Lim­it­ed in La Ro­maine, said the com­pa­ny does not ex­pect large a turnout this week as the con­struc­tion sec­tor re­mains closed.

Dur­ing the morn­ing, the com­pa­ny saw most of their cus­tomers shop­ping for house­hold sup­plies for Do it Your­self projects. 

Peyrau said the com­pa­ny was al­so now get­ting a ce­ment sup­ply. 

“It is a bal­ance. Be­cause con­struc­tion is closed, you would not get the rush. If con­struc­tion was open, those three days would not be enough. You would be rush­ing peo­ple in those three days where it should open every day to spread it out in the six days that we op­er­ate,” Peyrau said.

Glenn Khan was shop­ping for home im­prove­ment items—paint brush­es, thin­ners and gar­den sup­plies.

Fyzool Khan, right, and his father Alimudin shop for C purlin at Union Steel, Duncan Village, San Fernando, yesterday.

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

Khan said that as a re­tiree, he has a lot of time and now was the best time be­cause he does not have any help.

Michael Ra­goo­nanan shopped for tiles for a bath­room floor he was build­ing out­side his house. He al­so need­ed to re­pair his toi­let.

Si­mon Alexan­der, the own­er of Al­lied Home Cen­tre and Al­lied In­dus­tri­al Sup­plies Co Ltd, said it was im­por­tant that hard­ware stores re­open.

Si­mon said it re­mains an es­sen­tial ser­vice as peo­ple tend to have home emer­gen­cies with plumb­ing and elec­tri­cal mal­func­tions.

He said hard­ware stores should open every day, sug­gest­ing an 8 am – 4 pm op­er­a­tion. Un­like Peyrau, Alexan­der ex­pects hard­ware stores to be busy this week.

“It is more for plumb­ing. They have bro­ken toi­lets, the float failed, a line burst and flood out, so they need stuff. Def­i­nite­ly, the hard­ware would be busy,” Alexan­der said.

He said that his com­pa­nies were mak­ing ef­forts, through the Con­trac­tors As­so­ci­a­tion, to get staff vac­ci­nat­ed to en­sure they are bet­ter pro­tect­ed.

At Del­tex Art Shop in Port-of-Spain, man­ag­er Cheryl Paul said busi­ness was good. Paul said there was a con­stant flow of cus­tomers, but they lim­it­ed the num­bers in­side to en­sure prop­er dis­tanc­ing.

“It is a re­lief. We are glad to come back out,” Paul said.

Over at Hen­ry Street, par­ent An­drew Baird was at Ish­mael M Khan buy­ing books for his son, who will write ex­am­i­na­tions in 2022. Baird said it felt good to re­turn to the book­store as he got items for him­self and his son. He said the op­er­at­ing stan­dards were safe as there were not too many peo­ple in­side.

Bena Mohammed, store manager at Nigel R Khan book store in Gulf City Mall, opens her store to members of the public for yesterday’s reopening.

RISHI RAGOONATH

A short dis­tance away at Mo­hammed’s Book Store, em­ploy­ee Char­maine Ra­moutar felt safe. Ra­moutar said every­thing was in place to en­sure safe­ty, and cus­tomers were hap­py to re­turn. With the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment and Caribbean Ex­am­i­na­tion Coun­cil ex­am­i­na­tions ap­proach­ing, she said par­ents were hap­py to get sup­plies for their chil­dren.

It was al­so a re­lief for em­ploy­ees who were home for a long time. Raynece App­na was hap­py to be back to work at Nigel R Khan in Gulf City Mall. 

App­na said read­ing was im­por­tant to the coun­try, so they need­ed to be at work to serve the pub­lic. Her boss, Nigel R Khan, said peo­ple were just hap­py to be around books.

“This is our mis­sion. It is some­thing we love. We have been closed for so long, and some­thing is just not right about the in­ter­net and our on­line store sell­ing all these books on­line. You still need to come in and im­merse your­self in the ex­pe­ri­ence of read­ing. There is noth­ing like the pow­er of the print­ed word, so we are hap­py to be open af­ter so long.” 

Khan said they were prac­tis­ing so­cial dis­tanc­ing and prop­er hand hy­giene in the door. He added that their cus­tomers were among the most ed­u­cat­ed, so they fol­lowed the rules.

Diego Martin Secondary School student Jescinta Thomas, looks at the acrylic paints at the Deltex Art Shop, Pembroke Street, Port-of-Spain yesterday.

ANISTO ALVES

TCL to main­tain ce­ment prices at this time

As ce­ment prices soar over $100 per sack at hard­ware stores, Trinidad Ce­ment Ltd (TCL) says it will main­tain its prices at this time. How­ev­er, the com­pa­ny says that if there are in­creas­es in pro­duc­tion costs in the fu­ture, it will need to re­vis­it its prices. 

In a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, TCL says the com­pa­ny suf­fered sig­nif­i­cant loss­es due to the im­pact of the Gov­ern­ment’s COVID-19 Reg­u­la­tions to safe­guard the na­tion. How­ev­er, it ac­knowl­edged oth­er sec­tors, in­clud­ing con­struc­tion, suf­fer­ing the same dif­fi­cul­ties. On Sat­ur­day, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley chid­ed hard­ware deal­ers en­gaged in price goug­ing on ce­ment as he was not aware of any short­age to war­rant such an in­crease.

TCL said it has not sold ce­ment to the lo­cal mar­ket since May 8, ex­cept for di­rect­ly sup­ply­ing three es­sen­tial con­struc­tion projects at the gov­ern­ment’s re­quest. TCL said it awaits the Gov­ern­ment’s ap­proval to re­sume sales once it is safe to do so. TCL’s si­los and ware­hous­es are cur­rent­ly ful­ly stocked and ready to sup­ply at that time.

While some costs in­creased due to the pan­dem­ic, TCL said it is more re­silient to in­ter­na­tion­al volatil­i­ty. It is as the com­pa­ny us­es lo­cal raw ma­te­ri­als and labour to pro­duce ap­prox­i­mate­ly 95 per cent of its ce­ment, which it claims its strength as a lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­er. 

“That price sta­bil­i­ty has not hap­pened in oth­er im­port­ed con­struc­tion ma­te­ri­als such as steel or lum­ber, among oth­ers.  How­ev­er, in the fu­ture, in the event of an in­crease in the cost of con­tribut­ing fac­tors of pro­duc­tion, the com­pa­ny will need to re­vis­it its prices. It is es­pe­cial­ly in times like these that we must all sup­port each oth­er and help to re­build a stronger econ­o­my as soon as it is safe to do so.”

The com­pa­ny fur­ther stat­ed that it was aware of its re­spon­si­bil­i­ty as the lo­cal pro­duc­er of ce­ment and would al­ways act in the best in­ter­est of the coun­try.

“By sup­port­ing con­struc­tion through sta­ble pric­ing, we are al­so help­ing to push oth­er sec­tors for­ward. The con­struc­tion in­dus­try plays a key role in the lo­cal econ­o­my and CE­MEX/TCL con­tin­ues to be an in­te­gral con­trib­u­tor to that sec­tor.”