TT credit unions account for over half of region’s total

MINISTER of Labour Jennifer Baptiste-Primus says local credit unions account for over half of all credit unions in the Caribbean region. There are approximately 297 credit unions in the region, with 130 based in TT.

Addressing the 65th anniversary of TATECO San Fernando Credit Union Co-operative Society at the San Fernando City Auditorium on Saturday night, Baptiste-Primus said she too was a “child” of the credit union movement as everything she owned was bought through a credit union.

“I am a product, a child of the credit union movement. Everything that I own in life I owe it to the credit union movement. The land I purchased even before I had my two children, I approached Rhand credit union to purchase two lots of lands in the east.

"The house that I own, the credit union is responsible for giving me that start, I owe my progress in life to the credit union movement,” Baptiste-Primus said. She said TATECO credit union is one of the pioneers of the movement having weathered many storms which threatened the sector.

“You would have experienced the pits and the falls of your own economic reversals and above all, withstood the economic impact of economic adversity which, as a country, we have had to confront, not all together triggered from within our own territorial space but triggered by worldwide international realities."

She said there are 33 credit unions in Barbados and 32 in Jamaica. “The credit union movement in Trinidad and Tobago is not only safe and secure and in capable hands but the future growth and development of the sector is undeniably beyond question.”

However, she issued a word of caution saying things had changed and the movement had to adapt to change if it was to continue to survive.