The Pri­vate Sec­tor Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (PSOTT) says the mod­erni­sa­tion mea­sures in­tro­duced in the Fi­nance Bill would be un­der­cut if the ap­provals process con­tin­ues to stall.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion said it wel­comed the fact that the Fi­nance Bill, 2026, has in­tro­duced mea­sures that mod­ernise pub­lic process­es, re­vise and clar­i­fy fines and tax­es, and en­cour­age in­vest­ment through up­dat­ed pen­sion tax treat­ments and mar­gin­al en­er­gy field in­cen­tives.

The PSOTT re­lease said, “Im­por­tant­ly, by for­mal­is­ing cor­po­rate do­na­tion struc­tures to the ‘Women’s Health Fund’, the Bill al­so in­tro­duces a mech­a­nism for the pri­vate sec­tor to sup­port com­mu­ni­ty health­care in­de­pen­dent­ly from the state trea­sury. How­ev­er, dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion is mean­ing­less if the back­end ap­proval process re­mains back­logged. We urge the Gov­ern­ment to es­tab­lish clear, bind­ing ser­vice-lev­el agree­ments (SLAs) for state reg­istries, and all pub­lic ser­vices.”

The or­gan­i­sa­tion added, “Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the PSOTT is con­sult­ing with all seg­ments of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty to de­vel­op in­no­v­a­tive op­tions to re­solve the pro­tract­ed mat­ter of de­layed VAT re­funds—which was not treat­ed with in this Bill.”

The PSOTT ac­knowl­edged the Bill in­cludes mea­sures that mod­ernise pub­lic process­es, re­vise and clar­i­fy fines and tax­es, and en­cour­age in­vest­ment through up­dat­ed pen­sion tax treat­ments and mar­gin­al en­er­gy field in­cen­tives.

Im­por­tant­ly, by for­mal­is­ing cor­po­rate do­na­tion struc­tures to the “Women’s Health Fund,” the Bill al­so in­tro­duces a mech­a­nism for the Pri­vate sec­tor to sup­port com­mu­ni­ty health­care in­de­pen­dent­ly from the state trea­sury. How­ev­er, dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion is mean­ing­less if the back­end ap­proval process re­mains back­logged. We urge the Gov­ern­ment to es­tab­lish clear, bind­ing ser­vice-lev­el agree­ments (SLAs) for state reg­istries, and all pub­lic ser­vices. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the PSOTT is con­sult­ing with all seg­ments of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty to de­vel­op in­no­v­a­tive op­tions to re­solve the pro­tract­ed mat­ter of de­layed VAT re­funds—which was not treat­ed with in this Bill.

The PSOTT said it was al­so pleased with the Fi­nance Min­is­ter’s com­mit­ment to de­lib­er­ate­ly de­ter law-break­ing and dis­hon­est play­ers who un­der­cut the ma­jor­i­ty of busi­ness­es that com­ply with laws, reg­u­la­tions, and ro­bust eth­i­cal prac­tices through up­dates to fines.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion stat­ed, “Like the Min­is­ter, we too stand with “the hon­est cit­i­zen, the com­pli­ant tax­pay­er, the li­censed op­er­a­tor, and the busi­nessper­son who fol­lows the law…”

The or­gan­i­sa­tion added, “These up­dates ar­rive along­side a sta­bil­is­ing macro­eco­nom­ic con­text marked by ad­vance­ments that sig­nal to the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty that Trinidad and To­ba­go is “open for busi­ness”—by re­spon­sive­ly re­fin­ing our leg­isla­tive and eco­nom­ic ar­chi­tec­ture, and main­tain­ing our po­si­tion as a cred­i­ble and com­pet­i­tive des­ti­na­tion for in­vest­ment.”

The or­gan­i­sa­tion was al­so pleased with the Gov­ern­ment’s sig­nalling of leg­isla­tive changes which would in­clude lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form of con­struc­tion and build­ing ap­provals which PSOTT said should as­sist in im­prov­ing the ease of do­ing busi­ness.