More than 10 work­ers at Trad­er Jack’s Restau­rant at Movi­eTowne, Port-of-Spain, have been placed on tem­po­rary lay­off as the busi­ness con­fronts a dif­fi­cult fi­nan­cial pe­ri­od.

The busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty was thrown in­to mourn­ing af­ter the sud­den death of Sean Roach, the CEO of Langston Roach In­dus­tries (LRI), late on Sun­day.

Rat­ing agency Caribbean In­for­ma­tion and Cred­it Rat­ing Ser­vices (Cari­CRIS) has reaf­firmed the sov­er­eign is­suer cred­it rat­ings as­signed to the Gov­ern­ment of The Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go (GORTT) of Cari­AA (for­eign and lo­cal cur­ren­cy rat­ings) on its re­gion­al rat­ing scale.

For years, I have been build­ing dif­fer­ent pieces of what has now be­come the Digipreneur Net­work.

In­creased costs as re­sult of Na­tion­al In­sur­ance con­tri­bu­tion and for­eign ex­change chal­lenges have once again tak­en a toll on Pres­tige Hold­ings Ltd’s prof­its, ac­cord­ing to its fi­nan­cial state­ments for the first nine months of the fi­nan­cial year 2026,

Agri­cul­ture con­sul­tant Riyadh Mo­hammed is call­ing for a sharp­er fo­cus on the eco­nom­ic re­turns from Gov­ern­ment spend­ing on agri­cul­ture, ar­gu­ing that the up­com­ing na­tion­al bud­get must move be­yond its tra­di­tion­al fo­cus on al­lo­ca­tion mon­ey to mea­sur­ing how ef­fec­tive­ly those in­vest­ments trans­late in­to pro­duc­tion, stronger farm busi­ness­es and greater food se­cu­ri­ty.

For many house­holds, the test of a na­tion­al Bud­get is not the size of the al­lo­ca­tions or the promis­es made from the par­lia­men­tary podi­um, but how far the salary stretch­es when the bills are paid.

High­er prices can ease a Bud­get. They can­not re­place de­plet­ed re­sources, ac­cu­mu­lat­ed ex­pe­ri­ence or the need to turn both in­to last­ing na­tion­al val­ue.

The ris­ing cost-of-liv­ing and food price volatil­i­ty have been na­tion­al talk­ing points for weeks ahead of this week’s an­nounce­ment that the Na­tion­al Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion is set for Oc­to­ber 12.

With the Gov­ern­ment prepar­ing to de­liv­er its na­tion­al bud­get next week Mon­day, amid per­sis­tent for­eign ex­change short­ages, econ­o­mists and a busi­ness leader are urg­ing pol­i­cy­mak­ers to con­front one of the coun­try’s most dif­fi­cult eco­nom­ic ques­tions: whether the T&T dol­lar re­mains ap­pro­pri­ate­ly val­ued.

De­spite the re­cent an­nounce­ment of the down­siz­ing of its work­force in T&T, Pro­man is look­ing for­ward to good news in the up­com­ing bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion.

ANSA McAL Ltd has ex­e­cut­ed an amend­ed and re­stat­ed loan agree­ment that re­fi­nances an ex­ist­ing syn­di­cat­ed fa­cil­i­ty and pro­vides the com­pa­ny with the op­tion to ac­cess ad­di­tion­al fund­ing for gen­er­al cor­po­rate pur­pos­es.