Permanent Secretaries call for private sector support

INADEQUATE LEGISLATION delaying the conduct of business, better safeguards to prevent tax evasion, non-response to national surveys and complacency of business people to emerging economic realities,  are some areas which six Permanent Secretaries (PS) told private sector representatives Government needs their help in as it strives to transform Trinidad and Tobago into a developed nation by 2020. Addressing a breakfast meeting at the TT Chamber of Commerce’s Westmoorings headquarters yesterday, Office of the Attorney General PS, Cheryl Blackman, said there is a lot of archaic legislation on the statute books, which causes unnecessary delays in doing business, and there is a need for greater Government-private sector collaboration on the issue.

She said while there was a shortage of legal draughtsmen in the Office of the AG, Government was training persons in these skills in St Kitts and Barbados. Blackman said Government has also sought help from the United Nations Development Programme to bring legal draughtsmen from the Commonwealth to TT for a period of two years. Blackman also said Government was reviewing the operations of the Central Tenders Board (CTB) to ensure greater transparency and agreed with private sector suggestions that there should be a greater focus on value for money as opposed to the lowest bidder. Finance Ministry PS Leroy Mayers identified Value Added Tax (VAT) collections, possible tax evasion and inefficiency at the Customs and Excise Division, as some of the main problems which his Ministry was trying to address.

Mayers was hopeful that long-suffering financial legislation would soon be off the shelf, but declined to give any preview of the 2004/2005 Budget. Planning and Development Ministry PS, Victoria Mendez-Charles, lamented there was a general lack of response from the public to surveys conducted by the Central Statistical Office (CSO). She disclosed that the CSO would be upgraded under a joint Government-Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) programme and said that several regional nations, such as Bermuda and Belize, were seeking more information about Vision 2020. She said the Ministry would launch a major public education initiative on Government’s 2020 objectives later this month. Trade and Industry PS, Edwina Leacock, said many business people were still “complacent or outrightly ignorant” of emerging opportunities and challenges in the trade arena and appealed to the private sector to help educate these individuals.

She said this was crucial as TT prepared itself to become an integral part of the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) and the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). Works and Transport Ministry PS, Christine Sookram, said the National Transportation Study would begin later this month and would factor in proposals from an Indian company to establish a light monorail system. She said Works and Transport Minister Franklyn Khan has been speaking with the Jamaican government about implementing a toll payment system on TT’s highways. Sookram also disclosed that the CTB had awarded a contract to extend the Diego Martin Highway to Wendy Fitzwilliam Boulevard and work is expected to start in two weeks.