T&T’S BOYCOTT REPORT NOT TRUE: But PSOJ says some businesses reviewing arrangements

Official reports out of Trinidad and Tobago that some Jamaican businesses have started pulling products from shelves in the twin-island republic and have stopped buying goods from that country, have not been corroborated by the Jamaican private sector.

The claim came from T&T Trade Minister Paula Gopee-Scoon, who in a media interview, said she has been receiving information from the local manufacturing sector that their businesses are being affected by the recent immigration tensions between Jamaica and T&T.

Gopee-Scoon cited a period of two week over which she said the reports have been coming to her attention.

But President of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ), William Mahfood, has responded that he is not aware of any member entity that has taken a decision to boycott Trinidadian products, despite a growing call in Jamaica for action to address both trade and immigration issues with T&T.

Mahfood — while conceding that some Jamaican retailers have responded to the recent tensions with T&T by examining more closely their business arrangements with the neighbouring Caribbean state — said that does not amount to any systematic move to pull away from Trinidadian products.

In fact, the PSOJ President said he knew of no Jamaican business operator who has ceased doing business with any established manufacturer or supplier in Trinidad.

While Mahfood expressed a personal position of non-support for a boycott of Trinidadian products at present, he said Jamaica needs to take a firmer stance to better protect its trade arrangements with the twin-island republic, and also safeguard the treatment of Jamaicans who travel there.

Quite noticeably also, Prime Minister Andrew Holness has announced that the Jamaican Government is to undertake a comprehensive examination of the arrangements within CARICOM, the regional political and trading block, which includes both Jamaica and T&T.

The announcement comes amid revelations that T&T manufacturers have enjoyed a significant and hushed fuel subsidy in the oil-rich country for over a decade — a situation which is believed to have allowed it to flood Caribbean markets like Jamaica with relatively cheap manufactured goods, especially food and drinks, while the rest of the region is simply unable to compete on a level footing.

Additionally, the growing tension over repeated denial of entry to Jamaicans travelling to Trinidad, in the face of an almost clean sheet in the other direction, has ramped up calls for a Jamaican boycott of Trinidadian products.

Only perhaps former Trinidadian coup leader, Yasin Abu Bakr, who was deported from Jamaica on clear national security grounds in 2014, is known to have been denied entry to Jamaica as a Trinidadian in recent times.

And — as if adding fuel to the fire, on Thursday — reports emerged out of T&T that a talk-show host there, in response to complaints from a Jamaican caller to the show, characterised Jamaicans as nuisances, pests and criminals, whom he urged T&T immigration officers to keep out of the country.