South Chamber head:Covid19 causing severe hardship

Businesses remained closed on Monday in San Fernando as TT adhered to the stay-at-home measures to curb the spread of covid19.

The once busy High Street and others remained free from street vendors, pedestrians and traffic. Some essential businesses such as banks, bakeries and pharmacies, including Pennywise, remained open, but not with the volume of customers a month-end would usually bring.

On Saturday the Prime Minister announced that the stay-at-home measures would be extended at least until May 15. Newsday spoke with some taxi drivers on High Street, who said while they are suffering loss of income, there was nothing they could do. One driver said, “I just hope that people do the right thing so that we can go back to our normal lives.”

“The longer we take to make changes, it is going to take us longer to fight this thing. People will just have to suffer longer,” another driver said.

President of the Greater San Fernando Area Chamber of Commerce (GSFACC) Kiran Singh said while he understood the need for the extension of the covid19 measures, he was also worried about the survival of small businesses and their employees.

He said there will be severe economic and financial hardship in May, as many workers in the region fall within the micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) sector, and depend on small businesses for their salaries.

Singh said, “When May starts it is going to be a tremendous burden for the lower-income workers and those that fall within the informal sector, like the nutsman or pieman. Because there has been a fall in demand, these people have will now have no income to put food on their tables. This is a worrying factor for society.

“For April the small businesses were able to sustain the incomes of their employees, or at least gave them half of their wages or vacation leave, or utilise their sick leave to maintain the financial stability of the employees.” Singh said he fears some businesses may have to shut down if proper mechanisms are not put in place to assist the business sector post-covid19.