TTMA IN THE NEWS

TTMA cautious about VAT plan

The TT Manufacturers’ Association (TTMA) is expressing concern over the Minister of Finance’s plan to address the VAT issue by proposing an initial $3 billion interest-bearing bond facility. The association said in a media release on Monday, while it is a good initiative it may not be enough to offset the cost of doing business. Read more here

NEWS

‘Many loan options for start-up businesses’

While start-up businesses can find capital through various equity loans and corporate bonds as well as shares, most businesses depend on banks for loans. Aspire Fund Management’s chairman Howard Dottin said for the private equity market to flourish, in addition to investors, there need to be the fertile generation of ideas. He was speaking last Thursday at the company’s first Private Equity seminar on the “Disruption and Transformation of the Capital Markets” at Hyatt Regency, Port of Spain. Read more here

Brown: Careful considerations needed for proposed women aid

In his bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion for fis­cal 2019-2020, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert pro­posed to in­tro­duce day­care cen­tres to cater for chil­dren un­der three years old. How­ev­er, women’s ac­tivist Hazel Brown stressed that if in­suf­fi­cient plan­ning is done in­to the qual­i­ty of the child­care pro­vid­ed by this ini­tia­tive, it could pose a threat to the health of the chil­dren. In a tele­phone in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Brown said that “the care of chil­dren un­der five-years-old is the most crit­i­cal area of de­vel­op­ment and re­quires very spe­cial kinds of skills.” “In­tro­duc­ing these ser­vices with­out en­sur­ing there are peo­ple who have the skills to ad­e­quate­ly take care of the pro­vi­sion of those ser­vices has the po­ten­tial of se­ri­ous­ly dam­ag­ing chil­dren,” she cau­tioned. She al­so said that these day­cares must be placed in ar­eas that are eas­i­ly ac­ces­si­ble to sin­gle moth­ers. “If you pro­vid­ing child­care ser­vices in ar­eas that I can’t reach eas­i­ly by pub­lic trans­port, then I’m no bet­ter off,” she said. Read more here

POLITICS

Imbert challenges OWTU to deliver proposal for refinery

Finance Minister Colm Imbert has challenged the Oilfield Workers Trade Union (OWTU) to demonstrate its ability to deliver its proposal, now that it has won the bid to operate the former Pointe a Pierre refinery. Last month, the OWTU’s wholly owned company, Patriotic Energies and Technologies Company Ltd, was selected from among 77 international companies as the preferred bidder to operate refinery. In his budget presentation on Monday, Imbert said government is happy that the company owned by the union – which previously represented workers employed there – and more importantly, the only local bidder, is the preferred bidder. Read more here

Kamla: Budget was the final rites to bury the economy

While Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day ex­pressed de­light with Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert’s pro­pos­al to in­crease the min­i­mum wage from $15 to $17.50 an hour for 194,000 low in­come work­ers across the coun­try, she feels the pay hike was in­suf­fi­cient as it should have been $20 an hour in­stead. This was how Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­spond­ed at a press con­fer­ence at the Par­lia­ment Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, min­utes af­ter Im­bert de­liv­ered his $53 bil­lion 2019/20120 bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. Hav­ing lis­tened to Im­bert’s three hours 21 min­utes bud­get, PersaBisses­sar de­scribed it as a re­peat of promis­es from pre­vi­ous bud­gets he had de­liv­ered. “This was a mish­mash, hudge pudge of his same poli­cies com­ing from sev­er­al bud­gets be­fore. It is clear that he demon­strat­ed in a very bor­ing man­ner the cu­mu­la­tive fail­ures of four years.” Read more here

BUSINESS

T&T Chamber generally happy with budget measures

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce has mixed re­ac­tions to the 2019/2020 bud­get. The Cham­ber said while it was pleased Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert took note of some of its rec­om­men­da­tions there were how­ev­er, a num­ber of re­cur­ring items from pre­vi­ous bud­gets, such as the Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty, which re­flect­ed the im­ple­men­ta­tion chal­lenges. “Based on the lost tax rev­enue we be­lieve the ad­min­is­tra­tion must find a way to broad­en the tax net with the cur­rent in­fra­struc­ture, if the Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty is not im­ple­ment­ed in 2020,” the Cham­ber said. It added ef­forts to al­low for more ac­tive par­tic­i­pa­tion by the pri­vate sec­tor in the de­vel­op­ment of the in­dus­tri­al parks and the tax cred­it for mar­ket de­vel­op­ment to build the next tier of ex­porters are wel­come ini­tia­tives. “Reg­is­tered farm­ers too, will be glad for the in­cen­tives which were iden­ti­fied,” the Cham­ber added. Read more here

REGIONAL

Gov’t Says It Won’t Comment On Corruption Probe By Independent Bodies As Opposition Presses For Update

The Holness administration has labelled as “troubling” a call by Opposition Leader Dr Peter Phillips for the Government to speak on the ongoing corruption investigations relating to the education ministry. In March, Education Minister Ruel Reid resigned amid a slew of corruption allegations at a number of agencies that fall under the education ministry, including Caribbean Maritime University (CMU). Since then, the police have confirmed that he is the subject of a criminal investigation. CMU President Professor Fritz Pinnock had taken a leave of absence in July to allow the authorities to complete their probe. Last week, he returned to work at the east Kingston-based institution. Read more here

INTERNATIONAL

Brexit: Deal 'essentially impossible' after PM-Merkel call - No 10

A No 10 source says a Brexit deal is "essentially impossible" after a call between the PM and Angela Merkel. Boris Johnson spoke to the German chancellor earlier about the proposals he put forward to the EU - but the source said she made clear a deal based on them was "overwhelmingly unlikely". They also claimed she said a deal would never be possible unless Northern Ireland stayed in a customs union. Mrs Merkel's spokesman said they did not reveal confidential conversations. Read more here

Pressure on Republicans grows as Trump's impeachment net tightens

As the impeachment battle heads into its third week, President Donald Trump is intensifying his counter-attack against Democrats driving ever deeper into his inner circle. Trump's threats and extreme mistrust between the parties on Capitol Hill are forcing the consideration of the most extreme measures to keep safe a whistleblower who has followed the law to expose the President's alleged abuse of power. Democrats are making fresh efforts to maintain the early momentum of their impeachment gambit by flinging new subpoenas at Trump's administration and have associates of his lawyer Rudy Giuliani in their sights. Read more here

8th October 2019

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