Chester Sam­bra­no

Just days to go be­fore the first-ever To­ba­go Car­ni­val, To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce pres­i­dent Di­ane Hadad has ex­pressed dis­plea­sure about be­ing “in the dark’’ re­gard­ing what is go­ing to take place.

Al­though month-long cel­e­bra­tions have been tak­ing place, with over 80 sched­uled pri­vate-ini­ti­at­ed events, the core Car­ni­val takes place from Oc­to­ber 28 to 30.

How­ev­er, on the eve of the fes­tiv­i­ties comes word from one of the two busi­ness cham­bers on the is­land that there was no con­sul­ta­tion with some key stake­hold­ers.

Asked whether there had been an in­crease in busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ty in the past weeks as a re­sult of the Car­ni­val ac­tiv­i­ty and what were pos­si­ble pro­jec­tions for eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty, Hadad said, “To be very hon­est with you, I can­not say that as a busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty we were en­gaged in any mean­ing­ful way in terms of what the plans were.”

Still, Hadad said while the cham­ber does not have a clear un­der­stand­ing of what to ex­pect, it is still hop­ing for the best out­come.

“The cur­rent THA (To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly) ad­min­is­tra­tion is very guilty of lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion and in­ter­ac­tion with the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty in a mean­ing­ful way,” she added.

Hadad ac­knowl­edged that the THA has been do­ing pre­sen­ta­tions on the Car­ni­val plans but not­ed that it still seemed “very iso­lat­ed and dis­con­nect­ed from the stake­hold­ers and the peo­ple.”

She said her mem­bers have al­so been call­ing dai­ly about a loan guar­an­tee pro­gramme which is pro­posed to help busi­ness­es and has not been launched yet.

Al­though there has been an apol­o­gy from Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine for the de­lay, Hadad said, “I can’t say in any good way that peo­ple (busi­ness own­ers) are say­ing I’m okay.”

She said there was a surge in busi­ness over the last week­end but likened it to the long hol­i­day week­end and not Car­ni­val-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ty.

“Gen­er­al­ly, per­sons would come up to en­joy the week­end, that is nor­mal,” she said.

Hadad point­ed to an ad­di­tion­al five flights to the is­land per day from Caribbean Air­lines and a ful­ly booked fer­ry ser­vice.

“Is that go­ing to make any­body pay their bills, no. Is that go­ing to make them pay their loan, no. Is that go­ing to get them out of the hole they are in, big­ger no,” she ex­plained.

Nev­er­the­less, she said busi­ness­es will use the events as a pro­mo­tion­al mech­a­nism in the hope it helps gen­er­ate in­come in the fu­ture.

Mean­while, sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments were ex­pressed from the To­ba­go Busi­ness Cham­ber as it re­lat­ed to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of im­proved eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty.

How­ev­er, the body’s chair­man, Mar­tin George, is stay­ing pos­i­tive.

“The To­ba­go Busi­ness Cham­ber hopes that To­ba­go’s in­au­gur­al Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions would breathe new life and vi­bran­cy in­to the To­ba­go econ­o­my,” he said.

He said he was hop­ing the small and mi­cro en­tre­pre­neurs and the mom-and-pop op­er­a­tors get the biggest boost.

George is al­so hope­ful the Car­ni­val presents it­self as a won­der­ful vis­i­tor ex­pe­ri­ence.

“We urge all To­bag­o­ni­ans to en­sure that they give vis­i­tors the best pos­si­ble To­ba­go ex­pe­ri­ence, we urge them to give the high­est qual­i­ty of ser­vice de­liv­ery, prod­uct qual­i­ty and al­ways ser­vice with a smile,” he added.

He urged those on the is­land to al­so be mind­ful of the prices of prod­ucts and ser­vices to en­sure a pos­i­tive vis­i­tor ex­pe­ri­ence.

“It is de­pen­dent on us as To­bag­o­ni­ans en­sur­ing that we don’t en­gage in price goug­ing, we don’t jack up our prices, we don’t use this as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to take ad­van­tage of vis­i­tors,” he said.

He said the Car­ni­val wel­comes the op­por­tu­ni­ty to earn some “much need­ed in­come.”