The theme for this year’s iconic environmental event focused on “Forests and Energy”, namely biofuels as an alternative to fossil fuels.

Leveraging from this theme, the EMA’s National Restoration, Carbon Sequestration, Wildlife and Livelihoods Project (NRCSWLP) initiated a call to action through a tree planting and distribution exercise with the staff at the EMA, schools and community groups affiliated with the project.

This activity underscores the need for increasing forested areas/spaces, and calls for people to take action by planting trees in their communities, homes, or other public spaces. Fruit trees were distributed with a dual purpose in mind –a reminder of our need to equally increase our local food production, as well as, to increase our green spaces, said a media release.

In addition to this activity, on March 10 the NRCSWLP facilitated a community exchange session between the Fondes Amandes Community Restoration Project, and pupils of the Biche RC Primary School and Plum Mitan Presbyterian School.

One of the tenets of this project includes “sharing experiences”, and this partnership will increase awareness on forestry practices among these pupils.

EMA’s managing director Hayden Romano called for citizens to become more proactive in forest conservation efforts, through educational and advocacy avenues. Romano said in the release: “Planting trees is a symbol of our commitment to our future generations.

We must secure the continuity of our forested and green spaces and the EMA will continue to work with our strong network of environmentalists and non-governmental organisations to fulfil this commitment.”

Last Thursday, Finance Minister, Colm Imbert announced that government intended to withdraw TT $1.7 billion from the Heritage and Stabilisation for the purposes of financing the 2017 budget, particularly the Public Sector Investment Programme or PSIP.

Hosein acknowledged that after successive years of negative growth, government had to find ways to jump start the economy.

He suggested some methods by which this could be done, including creating backward and forward linkages within different sectors of the economy and increasing its productive capacity.

However, he was uncertain that use of the HSF to fund the PSIP would lead to the kind of economic growth the country needed. Hosein noted that government remained unclear as to what parts of the PSIP they intended to invest the money in, and until he had that data, he preferred to take the wait and see approach.

The economist also was also concerned about the continued gap between TT’s income and expenditure, caused largely by low prices for oil and gas in the global market.

“Government revenues fell, as did government expenditure. But they are not falling in the same proportion,” said Hosein.

Providing figures, the economist noted that energy and non-energy sector revenue declined between the first quarter of FY 2015/2016 and the first quarter of FY 2016/2017 from $11.2 billion to $7.9 billion.

“The state has projected revenues for 2016/17 at $47.4 billion. With only TT$7.9 billion collected in the first quarter of fiscal year 2016/2017, there is the likelihood of a higher than expected fiscal deficit for 2016/2017,” said Dr Hosein.

The economist said that while the finance minister had done a good job in containing expenditure in his first year, it was gradually creeping back up.

He also said that government’s wage bill had increased by $55.9 million, even though its overall expenditure had fallen.

“This is a trend the government would want to reverse,” said the economist, “In fact, the time has come in the economy as a whole to provide a better alignment between wage increases and changes in worker productivity.” Hosein noted the contraction in the labour market, saying that more than 8,000 workers have left it, something he termed a significant fall. Moreover, the economist said that over time data suggested that TT’s labour market was contracting and may reach a point where the unavailability of labour might become a problem to the economy. He said the labour market has not been adjusting to this reality.

One of these steps Hosein suggested, was keeping workers in the labour pool longer by increasing the retirement age from 60 to 65 in the public service.

The UWI lecturer said the time has also come for government to consider “novel” ways to raise non energy tax revenues. “As it did in the context in the early 1990s on the intervention of the IMF, the state may have to become less involved with various state enterprises and push for each to be more cost efficient,” said Hosein.

“At some point, government has to consider living more within its non-energy sector means. Budgets closer to TT$40bn must become the new norm and just as we escalated government expenditure we now need to find ways to reduce it.” Hosein warned that the country was headed down a “dangerous road” with a debt to GDP ratio of around 62 per cent.

“It cannot be business as usual or else the informal IMF program we are currently practicing would become more formal,” said Hosein.

Given the decline in revenues, the UWI lecturer again made a call for government to depreciate the value of TT currency versus the US dollar to preserve stock of foreign exchange.

He told Business Day that government allowed a depreciation to around $9:30 to $1, several bidders would leave the market, leaving only those who could afford to purchase.

He said the provision in the fund when it was set up was to allow for withdrawals if there was a shortfall in the budgeted oil price by more than 10% in any given period of up to 60% of the actual revenue shortfall.

Thus, he says the recent withdrawal is in keeping with the guidelines of the fund. He added that the guidelines did not dictate that the Government must specify what it was going to spend the money on, recalling that the 2017 budget has already been presented.

“So it would have been for items which would already have been identified in the budget but without any degree of specifics in terms of how much was going to each project that they were allocating this money to.”According to Dr Conrad, the withdrawal acknowledges that there is a significant shortfall to warrant a drawdown from the fund. However, he said his major concern is what has been done to create new revenue streams and he says he doesn’t see much being done in that regard.

He says, for instance, that while the Government has been talking about diversification to improve revenues from the non-energy sector, there was a ceremonial signing of an energy agreement to bring gas from Venezuela to feed the natural gas facilities in Trinidad.

“So it makes me wonder to what extent they are actually trying to diversify in terms of the revenue streams and if it would become the new normal to draw down from the fund going forward because in the last week I think we saw oil prices take another hit… we were seeing some rallying and an upswing, but it wasn’t sustained.” He said there are more immediate challenges that the country needs to deal with but he is not seeing those adjustments being made just yet. He said the issue of rising unemployment points to uncertainty within the business community “so we’ll probably see a falloff in investment,” which he said was a more immediate concern rather than the focusing on the drawdown from the HSF. He says he is more concerned with the extent of external borrowings and what that money will be used for.

He says the country is still too focused on the energy sector. While he willingly concedes that any contribution from the manufacturing sector to the diversification of the economy would not be able to rival that of the energy sector, he says that doesn’t mean that the manufacturing sector doesn’t have the potential if fully explored to generate substantial revenues. “By no means will it be able to rival the energy sector, but certainly it can move from where it is and we can see improvements in that.”

But there are those who experience a different kind of pain. Those who remain wondering if they too will find themselves in this position. Even for those who keep their jobs, morale is low, while suspicion and hostility directed at the organisation is high.

Maxine Attong found herself downsized from her job last year. She admitted that even though she knew in advance her position was going to be made redundant, she still grieved its loss. She said many people’s identities were tied to their jobs, which is why they take retrenchments and the loss of lifestyle that the lack of income may bring so hard.

“When they can’t do what they are accustomed to anymore, they feel less of a person. To me, that is the scariest part. We have not been taught about self-value. We have a lot of unlearning to do,” said Attong.

This is one of the things that Organisational Development (OD) can bring to a company, she said. Attong explained to Business Day that OD training intervenes at the strategic level, hoping to shift a company’s internal and external procedures, its way of doing business over the long term, and she believed that in this time of recession and downsizing, organisations all over needed such an intervention.

“I think that if there was ever a time for OD in Trinidad and Tobago, it is now.”An OD consultant, this was not Attong’s first career choice. An accountant by training, she found that she could not impact organisations in the way that she wanted to.

“As an accountant, you could do process improvement, you could do consultancy, but in terms of working with the people in the organisation, I found that to be a little elusive,” she said.

Attong began to re-tool her skill set, becoming a trainer, a facilitator and eventually a coach.

“Because I was doing facilitation and coaching, I realised they were tentacles of some bigger body called Organisational Development. I worked backwards into OD saying I want to learn about this thing and it promises that I can intervene.” She recently hosted her first annual breakfast seminar, Maximising Human Capital in the New Economy. The event targeted HR personnel, who become especially important in times of uncertainty.

“I wanted to bring HR professionals together to begin a conversation.

Times are challenging, how do we deal with our human capital?” Attong asked. The first thing, she said, was to remember that an organisation was not a “thing”.

“Here is a table,” Attong illustrated, “You can pick it up and put it anywhere.

You could put it into the back of your car and the table will not resist. That is not an organisation. If I were to say to everyone here, pick up your chair, some people will say that is not what they are here for, some will move it.

That is what happens in an organisation when you have change.” The three pillars of OD are focusing on employee engagement, leadership development and team building, according to Attong.

“You can’t really have a team that is effective unless employees are engaged. For employees to be engaged the leaders are usually the conduit between the employees and the organisation.

Those three pieces go together.” Referring to today’s tough economic times she said, “If you look at the workforce, unless you have a really secure job and I believe that to be a thing of the past, everyone is walking around with a certain amount of tension, because they don’t know what will happen.” Attong said leadership development in particular was an important part of diffusing this tension.

“That is where the intervention comes in.

Leaders feel pressure too, but still have to find a way to motivate and encourage people to commit to what is left of the organisation.” “If your organisation hasn’t sent anybody home yet, people are wondering. If it has, you have a workforce that is reduced with increased workload. As a leader, you need to be able to work with this. How to deal with engaging employees at this time when all seems dark. How to have effective teams. How do I conduct myself as leader? How do I as a leader harness the energy of my team?” The OD consultant said organisations could not expect to treat employees the way they had in past recessions in the 80s and 90s.

“People do what they know or what worked in the past. There is a need to hold a mirror up to show them what they are and how they could change.” This is something Attong believes OD can do.

She has several sessions planned throughout the year targeting different functions within the organisation.

The company also copped 17 GOLD awards — the most in the region — and 18 silver awards, featuring campaigns from clients including First Citizens, Guyana Telephone & Telegraph Company Ltd, KFC and Unilever. This year’s haul was the agency’s biggest in its 48-year history — eclipsing last year’s 20.

“My compliments to team cmb and my thanks to our clients for their belief in our ideas,” cmb Managing Director Mark White said.

They are also Trinidad’s newest agency having recently opened offices on Kitchener Street, Woodbrook.

Red won ADDYs across 8 separate brands and included wins in packaging, online, music, photography, magazine and press ads, collateral, TV, radio and Out of Home.

The annual ADDY show is the biggest creative competition in the region and is under the auspices of the American Advertising Federation.

This year entries came from 32 companies across eight Caribbean territories – Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, The US Virgin Islands, The Bahamas, The Cayman Islands, Curacao and Puerto Rico.

Jevan Jutagir, Managing Director of Red, commented on the awards: “500 awards over a period of 14 years is no mean feat. Getting there ahead of much bigger and older agencies from Trinidad and Jamaica gives us the icing on the proverbial cake.

“In achieving this unprecedented milestone, we have also been consistently in the top 3 creative agencies in the Caribbean, having won this prestigious creative competition outright in 4 of the past 10 years”.

He went on to praise his creative team. “We see agencies come and go at these awards, but it is testament to our creative team that Red is always a constant at these awards.

The team give it their all every year and every year they deliver the goods on behalf of our clients.

“2016 had many new challenges, not least our opening up in Trinidad, but we were able to surmount these while maintaining the quality of our creative product.” The ADDY Awards is the creative award show of the American Advertising Federation (AAF) of which the Caribbean Advertising Federation (CAF) is a member. The awards are three-tiered with local shows and awards which feed into regional shows (the CAF is part of the 4th District region which includes Florida, The Caribbean and Puerto Rico) which in turn feed into a National show.

Anyone thrust into a leadership position will feel compelled to take on more than they can realistically handle. After all, that’s the easiest way to prove that you not only talk the talk, but walk the walk. You tend to say yes to anything that comes your way, because you want to prove your competency.

Many young aspiring leaders struggle with delegation. They struggle to do the opposite of what they feel they must do, which is prove how much they can execute. They struggle to take a step back and think about how they can make effective use of the talented people around them, instead of always being immersed in the work themselves.

Justin Potter, Forbes 30 under 30 founder and CEO of Cleanify, says, “One of the biggest problems we see successful owners having is trusting their team once they’re not part of the team actually going into people’s homes and offices.” According to him, everyone worries their new team may not do a good job or, worse, may cause a liability issue by being clumsy or malicious.

“I often become friends with our cleaning services, and I like to remind those who come to me for advice that unless they don’t trust their internal reviews or interview process, they have nothing to fear,” he explains. “At a certain point, you need to trust that someone else can do the task just as well as you can— or even better. And that’s what being a leader is all about.” Seasoned leaders make it a point to spend time with their newly appointed leaders to teach them how sometimes taking one step back can mean taking three steps forward as a team.

So, how can young leaders start to integrate this idea into their leadership style? Let’s look at three ways.

Be The First To Take Responsibility And The Last To Take Credit Poor leaders want to take credit when things go well and point the finger when things go poorly. But great leaders know the value of doing the opposite. When things go south, they are the first to step forward and look for where they may have dropped the ball and failed the team. And when things go well, they take a deliberate step back to allow the team members who executed the project to celebrate a job well done.

Remember, you did not become a leader by standing over people with a title. You became a leader because of your attitude and your positive habits. The more people you lead, the more vital it is to remember where you started and have the humility to allow others on your team to shine.

Allow Team Members To Have Ownership Over Their Work Many teams fail when they become entirely dependent on their leader. This type of dependency often manifests in mediocre work. When people don’t have ownership—when they feel their voice isn’t heard or their ideas aren’t valued—they aren’t going to give their all. More important, they won’t have experience solving problems without their leader. A good leader allows team members to grow and stand on their own.

Find Ways To Practice Trusting Your Team Part of establishing good habits is about finding ways to practice them. For example, if you find yourself having trouble trusting that projects get done with little direction, look for opportunities to give your team members that chance. If you’re hesitant, start by delegating smaller tasks, and work up to larger projects. Learning to delegate is a critical skill, especially for a young leader. If the art of allowing others to succeed on their own isn’t mastered, you may be doing more harm than good.

(Deep Patel, forbes.com)

However, a number of constraints continue to limit growth in the SME sector.

Given the vital importance of the sector to the region, governments must take steps to support them.

Governments across the world have tried to improve the business environment for SMEs issuing government backed guarantees, encouraging banks to increase SME lending and issuing grants earmarked for SMEs. However, if there appears to be too much regulation, this can be off-putting for potential business start-ups and may also deter sole traders from employing more people. Nevertheless, reduced regulatory burdens can contribute to higher rates of business survival.

Many young people have the imagination, drive and energy to set up new businesses.

According to The World Bank within the past four years, 19 per cent of new businesses in Latin America and the Caribbean were founded by someone under the age of 35.

The Caribbean does have a serious unemployment issue, especially with its levels youth unemployment. Not only is youth unemployment high relative to global levels, it is also significantly higher than adult unemployment. Data from the Caribbean Development Bank indicates that the average youth unemployment rate for countries in the region with available data was nearly 25% in 2013, compared with the adult rate of only 8%. Gender differences were also significant, with unemployment among female youth exceeding 30% as opposed to 20% for males.

Job creation can be problematic for many governments when economic conditions are less favourable. But there has been a rising trend in many countries to promote entrepreneurship and small business development to combat the lack of quality jobs available in the region’s larger or multinational businesses Governments across the Caribbean must develop greater partnerships with accountants, bank managers and micro finance institutions to address the issue of how small businesses can have greater access to capital.

Business advisers and finance institutions have an important role to play in developing favourable lending environment for SME growth.

For example, greater awareness of alternative approaches to raising capital such as listing on the Stock Exchange should be promoted, including the relatively low listing requirements, which make it a credible finance option for a greater proportion of small firms. This option is also highly beneficial for enterprises seeking long-term funding for business growth.

Other sources of finance, such as leasing, should also be promoted by financial institutions and business advisers as this is one of the key sources of finance for European small businesses with the potential of playing an equally important role in small business lending in the Caribbean.

Sound financial management is key to improving the viability of small firms. This knowledge is called financial literacy, which allows an individual to make informed and effective decisions about their financial resources. Anyone in control of a small business will benefit from recruiting the services of a professional accountant who can best support them on how to get hold of sustainable finance, navigate through the government procurement process, and how to comply with regulations.

Regrettably, regulations and taxes are generally designed with the larger businesses in mind and then retro-fitted to the smaller ones. Every tax or regulation break and nuance later created to help small businesses only adds to the weight of regulation that small business owners have to understand and apply.

A good financial foundation is a must.

Any good accountant can be as flexible as a business needs them to be, and able to explain anything that is unclear to ensure the best decisions are made.

There are many attractions and great benefits to operating in the SME sector, however the reality is uncertainty is the new norm. Anyone who makes the brave decision to go in this sector will have to factor in turbulence as a very real possibility, and should develop strategies for a range of different economic market and of course, personal, scenarios.

Preparation to visit Singapore requires some knowledge of the laws as they apply to both natives and visitors. A few include: no littering, no chewing of gum, no illegal drugs [which is clearly visible on signs from the airport throughout], no weapons, pornographic material, jaywalking, spitting and smoking in public places. These are but a few of the more general laws. However, it would help to undertake a quick review. Singapore is a very safe nation, with the authorities ensuring it remains that way.

In many western countries, “eye contact” is a barometer for trustworthiness. It is important to appreciate that the Singaporean culture prefers intermittent eye contact, meaning you may not have business partners looking at you “directly in the eye” always. Please understand this has nothing to do with a lack of trustworthiness, but sustained eye contact is considered hostile and aggressive.

If you are to present a proposal for consideration to your business partners, ensure it is heavily technical, and the most advanced you can present, as this is a country where they are extremely focussed on innovation and technology.

With respect to greetings, if you are interacting with the younger, foreign – trained Singaporean, a handshake is the most common form of greeting. For the more mature, more of a hand clasp may be welcome, where both hands are used and this lasts for around ten to twelve seconds.

Westernized women usually shake hands with both women and men, whereas Singaporean men usually wait for a woman to offer her hand. It is important to note that too-frequent handshaking is easily misinterpreted as an amorous advance. The traditional Malay greeting is the salaam where both parties stretch out one or both hands, touch each other’s hand[s] lightly, then place their hand[s] back to rest over their heart. This greeting is done only between people of the same sex.

When meeting persons, ensure they are addressed by their title and name. If a person does not have a professional title [Doctor, Engineer etc], use “Mr” or “Madam”, “Mrs,” or “Miss,” plus their name. If you do not understand the pronunciation of a name, simply ask for guidance and repeat to confirm your pronunciation is correct.

Singapore prides itself on being the most corruption free country in Asia. As a result, there are very strict laws pertaining to bribery.

Government employees may not accept gifts at all. Do not present a gift to anyone unless you have established a personal relationship with that person. If, however, you have established such a friendship, note the following: Malays consider dogs unclean, therefore do not present a toy dog, or pictures of dogs. Among the Indian population, the frangipani flower is used only for funeral wreaths, please be aware. Remember to stay away from giving leather products to observant Hindus, out of respect for their beliefs. Likewise, do not present pork or alcohol products to observing Muslims.

As a visitor, you should dress more conservatively until you know what degree of formality is expected.

Men should be prepared to wear a business suit, which can easily be adjusted accordingly. Women should wear the traditional business suit, inclusive of a pant suit. In some circumstances, and as a result of the heat, the dress code can be less formal – however, follow the lead of your host.

The Central Bank Act states that “The Bank shall have as its purpose the promotion of such monetary credit and exchange conditions as are most favourable to the development of the economy of Trinidad and Tobago.” This means that at the end of the day the Central Bank, in particular the Governor, has to determine the most appropriate course of action to adopt.

There are those who may argue that at a time when the economy is experiencing negative growth the Governor should consider the need to get growth started as the highest priority. Certainly, at this time stabilizing the economy and re-igniting growth is important, but so too are risks associated with not responding to the Fed’s decision.

The Governor has a choice to either consider the need to ensure cost of borrowing remains low or provide the incentive to borrow by not raising the repo rate or he can consider the narrowing TT-US differential a higher risk to the economy.

An examination of the threemonth TT-US differential and the long-term differential (10-year Treasury differential) suggests that the Governor does have the room to hold-off on increasing the repo rate. Perhaps if the Fed were to increase the rate again then the Governor may have to look at portfolio realignment and adjust the differential to remove the incentive for local institutions and individuals to look for higher yields abroad. We will have to wait and see what is the Governor’s interpretation of the risk faced by the narrowing TT-US differential.

Of course, one may ask, what about this policy of forward guidance? Generally a Governor takes a philosophical position with regards to communicating with the nation. Governor Ewart Williams took a position that was diametrically opposed to that used by Alan Greenspan. The latter held the position that if the audience understood what he was saying he had not achieved his objective.

Williams took great pains, not only to speak to the public but through the many publications of the Central Bank, he tried to inform as well as educate. He wanted the public to understand and participate.

The last two Governors appear to have taken, certainly in the early periods in office, a much less involved relationship with the public. As such the effectiveness of forward guidance is reduced. Especially at this time, understanding the risks facing the country and the role of monetary policy can be helpful if only to calm speculations based on ignorance.

Keeping the speculative motive in check can reduce the outflow of foreign currency once forward guidance telegraphs both the risks being faced and the policy stance that will be adopted. Certainly that may be an appropriate response to the present Fed’s action and anticipated actions in the future