George: Improve ease of doing business in Trinidad and Tobago

HEAD of the Tobago Business Chamber Martin George says that there is need to focus on the bigger picture of improving the ease of doing business in Trinidad and Tobago, rather than "the tiresome and tedious disaggregation in an academic exercise of crunching the numbers."

On September 30, during the 2024/2025 budget presentation by Finance Minister Colm Imbert in the Red House, Port of Spain, Tobago was allocated $2.599 billion for the fiscal year. Imbert said the THA will receive 4.35 per cent of the budget.

In a video message on October 1, George said recent world bank statistics showed TT ranks 105th in the world when it comes to ease of doing business, noting that there are 192 countries. He said in the Caribbean and Latin American, TT ranked 12th,  Jamaica fourth and Mexico number one.

“What is it that they are doing that we need to do to bring ourselves up into making TT a place that facilitates the ease of doing business?

"You look at sometimes the inanity and stupidity of the request and stipulations we are faced with by government departments and some of the places you have to try to do business with. The registrar general’s office, the company’s registry, customs, immigration, national insurance board, BIR offices and the requirements and requests and the red tape – they make it so cumbersome. It’s almost as if they are deliberately trying to frustrate you in your efforts to do your business.”

He referred to the property tax, noting there were long lines of people trying to pay.

“We really need to look at our ease of doing business as a country, because as it is, TT is one of the more difficult places to do business in the Caribbean and certainly in the world.

"We really have to look at these things and the numerous requirements. We really are making things more difficult for people.”