Camille McEach­nie

Few peo­ple were out to pa­tro­n­ise stores in To­ba­go as the re­tail sec­tor re­opened yes­ter­day fol­low­ing its clo­sure to pre­vent the spread of COVID-19.

At the Port Mall-Scar­bor­ough, Gulf City Low­lands and D Colos­se­um at Crown Point, many stores re­mained closed.

To­ba­go Di­vi­sion of the Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce said the sit­u­a­tion calls for the fi­nan­cial sec­tor and Gov­ern­ment to find cre­ative ways to as­sist busi­ness­es to off­set their debts and “restart.”

At the Port Mall-Scar­bor­ough, va­cant store fronts glass ex­te­ri­ors were plas­tered with news­pa­pers. Many oth­ers, al­though they ap­peared ful­ly stocked, had closed signs on their locked doors.

The few cus­tomers, milling around, said they were there to buy shoes.

“I am shop­ping for work shoes. It’s been a while since I could pur­chase any,” Adan­na Hearst-Charles told Guardian Me­dia.

The three women in the store chimed in the con­ver­sa­tion, not­ing that they could on­ly buy es­sen­tial items and were look­ing for bar­gains.

At the Low­lands Mall, not as many stores were emp­ty or closed. How­ev­er, there were few cus­tomers.

Most of them lined the front of Pay­less Shoe Source to take ad­van­tage of the 60 per­cent off the sec­ond item sale.

Time­ca Richards said she and her daugh­ter looked for­ward to shop­ping for san­dals.

Sec­re­tary of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, En­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment, and Labour, who was at the Low­lands Mall, said she was “ex­treme­ly grate­ful that the re­tail sec­tor has re­opened.”

She was there to pur­chase clothes to bury her broth­er.

As­sem­bly­man Dr.Faith B.Yis­rael said she was shop­ping for a com­put­er part and a glass­es frame.

She was al­so hap­py the sec­tor had re­opened. How­ev­er, she sound­ed a word of cau­tion.

She said, “ I think it (shop­ping) just needs to be done safe­ly. We have to be care­ful be­cause we re­al­ize the num­bers in To­ba­go are mov­ing up in­stead of go­ing down, as they are in Trinidad. We have to be care­ful about how we are do­ing this and en­sure we fol­low the COVID pro­to­cols.”

At D Colos­se­um at Crown Point, most of the spaces on the sec­ond floor were emp­ty. On the ground floor, which usu­al­ly hous­es food stores, not all had re­opened on Ju­ly 19, 2021.

Com­ment­ing on the clo­sure of many stores, To­ba­go Cham­ber’s head Hadad said busi­ness­es are un­der pres­sure.

“Many pri­vate sec­tor busi­ness­es have not just been brought to their knees, but their an­kles.Some of the busi­ness­es may have re­mained closed so that ne­go­ti­a­tions can take place for con­tin­ued rental of prop­er­ty,” Hadad said.

She added: “We have not heard that rent pay­ments were can­celled. Our un­der­stand­ing is that peo­ple are still call­ing for their rent. Peo­ples’ stocks may be the first as­set to be liq­ui­dat­ed so that rent and oth­er fixed bills can be paid. Peo­ple have mount­ed up large sums of debts.

She said many busi­ness­es might nev­er re­turn as they have spent all their sav­ings and liq­ui­dat­ed oth­er as­sets to pay off their debts.

She of­fered a so­lu­tion.

“ The en­tire fi­nan­cial sys­tem needs to be ad­dressed, and the con­di­tions un­der which peo­ple bor­row mon­ey need to be changed. Fi­nan­cial In­sti­tu­tions need to get cre­ative, and the Gov­ern­ment needs to in­ter­vene,” Hadad said.