Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Co­conut oil pro­duc­ers and ven­dors in the south-west­ern com­mu­ni­ty of Ica­cos are ex­press­ing con­cern over Gov­ern­ment’s pro­pos­al to dou­ble the penal­ty for man­u­fac­tur­ing co­pra prod­ucts with­out a li­cence, warn­ing the move could neg­a­tive­ly im­pact small op­er­a­tors who de­pend on the in­dus­try for their liveli­hoods.

The pro­posed in­creas­es con­tained in the Fi­nance Bill, 2026, will dou­ble the fine from $4,000 to $8,000 for man­u­fac­tur­ing co­pra prod­ucts with­out the re­quired li­cence.

How­ev­er, speak­ing with Guardian me­dia yes­ter­day, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo said the mea­sure is not aimed at law-abid­ing pro­duc­ers and has re­ject­ed sug­ges­tions that new re­quire­ments are be­ing im­posed on the in­dus­try.

Re­spond­ing to con­cerns raised fol­low­ing the an­nounce­ment, Tan­coo said there ap­pears to be mis­in­for­ma­tion sur­round­ing the pro­pos­al.

“There seems to be some mis­in­for­ma­tion be­ing cir­cu­lat­ed. There is no new tax­a­tion cre­at­ed or new reg­is­tra­tion re­quire­ments with re­gards to co­pra prod­ucts,” the min­is­ter said.

Tan­coo ex­plained that the re­quire­ment for pro­duc­ers to be reg­is­tered, along with penal­ties for non-com­pli­ance, has ex­ist­ed for decades and was in­tro­duced to reg­u­late the in­dus­try.

He said the pro­posed in­crease is in­tend­ed to tar­get in­di­vid­u­als op­er­at­ing out­side of the ex­ist­ing le­gal frame­work and to pro­tect con­sumers.

“How­ev­er, it ap­pears that some pro­duc­ers have been in breach of the law, ex­pos­ing reg­u­lar cit­i­zens to the po­ten­tial risks.”

He stressed that com­pli­ant pro­duc­ers have noth­ing to fear.

“Once per­sons are reg­is­tered in ac­cor­dance with the ex­ist­ing law, the fine will not ap­ply to them. That has al­ways been so.

“I re­peat that cit­i­zens who have been com­pli­ant with the law have noth­ing to wor­ry about.”

De­spite those as­sur­ances, pro­duc­ers in Ica­cos say the pro­posed in­crease has gen­er­at­ed anx­i­ety among many peo­ple in­volved in the co­conut in­dus­try, par­tic­u­lar­ly small­er op­er­a­tors.

Al­fred John Williams, who has been pro­duc­ing co­conut oil for more than 20 years, said the in­dus­try re­mains an im­por­tant source of em­ploy­ment and in­come with­in the com­mu­ni­ty.

“Here in Ica­cos, it have a lot of peo­ple em­ployed by the co­conut in­dus­try. It’s low wages and hard work, but it is how some of us make our liv­ing,” Williams said.

While not­ing he was pre­vi­ous­ly reg­is­tered, Williams said the pro­pos­al has high­light­ed con­cerns about the reg­is­tra­tion process and ac­cess to com­pli­ance.

“Yes, I was reg­is­tered once, but now I am con­cerned. I have to be con­cerned. I will have to go and get it reg­is­tered, and they have to give you a way to be reg­is­tered.”

For pro­duc­er Fer­ose Ali, who has been in­volved in the co­conut oil in­dus­try for ap­prox­i­mate­ly 11 years, the busi­ness has served as an im­por­tant sup­ple­ment to his fam­i­ly’s in­come.

“Orig­i­nal­ly, we are fish­er­men, but the prob­lem is we try to do some­thing else to help with the fish­ing, and with that, we start­ed the co­conut oil about 11 years now. So it has sup­ple­ment­ed our in­come,” Ali said.

Ali ques­tioned Gov­ern­ment’s ar­gu­ment that stricter en­force­ment is nec­es­sary to pro­tect con­sumers.

“How is it go­ing to help pro­tect cus­tomers, be­cause they can’t find a prob­lem with the oil? If we have a prob­lem with the oil, no prob­lem with that. You test it, and you say this oil has a prob­lem, and we can’t mar­ket it. But no­body will come to we and test it or say this is not a prod­uct suit­ed for cus­tomers.”

Ali ac­knowl­edged he is reg­is­tered as a sole trad­er and there­fore would not be di­rect­ly im­pact­ed by the in­creased penal­ty. Nev­er­the­less, he said many peo­ple through­out the in­dus­try are not reg­is­tered.

“There are a lot of per­sons in the com­mu­ni­ty, a lot of peo­ple through­out the coun­try who are un­reg­is­tered and re­ly on the co­conut oil in­dus­try.”

He be­lieves greater en­gage­ment with stake­hold­ers should oc­cur be­fore any changes are im­ple­ment­ed.

“We don’t have no prob­lem with what is go­ing on, but at least come and talk to the peo­ple. Find out what is the sit­u­a­tion.”

Ali al­so ques­tioned how the pro­posed rules would af­fect small farm­ers who pro­duce lim­it­ed quan­ti­ties of co­conut oil from their own lands.

“It have a farmer that he have an acre of land, and he get his own co­conut. That means he can’t make oil? He had to go and reg­is­ter a busi­ness to make a case of oil or two cas­es of oil to sell for his fam­i­ly? It make no sense.”

Co­conut oil and oth­er processed crop pro­duc­er Pree­tam Sama­roo, 30, al­so ex­pressed con­cern about the po­ten­tial im­pact on low­er-in­come earn­ers, de­spite be­ing in the process of for­mal­is­ing his own op­er­a­tion.

Sama­roo said he be­gan pro­duc­ing co­conut oil as a side busi­ness while work­ing and has grad­u­al­ly ex­pand­ed his op­er­a­tions.

“We start­ed off small, lit­tle by lit­tle, and even­tu­al­ly we kept grow­ing. We are get­ting big­ger or­ders now, and even­tu­al­ly we want to do things more pro­fes­sion­al­ly.”

He said he sup­ports busi­ness reg­is­tra­tion and com­pli­ance for those op­er­at­ing on a long-term ba­sis, but be­lieves the pro­posed in­crease could dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly af­fect vul­ner­a­ble in­di­vid­u­als.

“It has oth­er poor peo­ple that will be af­fect­ed by this be­cause re­mem­ber, it has peo­ple who are do­ing this at home, maybe try­ing to sell in or­der to make a lit­tle liveli­hood.”

Ac­cord­ing to Sama­roo, reg­is­tra­tion can in­volve costs that may be dif­fi­cult for some small pro­duc­ers to ab­sorb.

“It might cost on av­er­age about $500 to reg­is­ter the busi­ness and there are peo­ple who charge con­sult­ing fees in or­der to get the busi­ness reg­is­tered. But re­mem­ber, it’s most­ly the poor peo­ple that will be af­fect­ed, the peo­ple who are now try­ing.”

He al­so ques­tioned the pub­lic health jus­ti­fi­ca­tion be­ing ad­vanced for the mea­sure.

“Peo­ple have been mak­ing co­conut oil for years, and I’ve nev­er heard any­body get sick from us­ing co­conut oil or any­thing like that.”

Sama­roo’s mes­sage to the Gov­ern­ment was one of cau­tion and com­pas­sion.

“I’d like them to know that in this coun­try, we have a lot of poor peo­ple that are try­ing. They can try to be less harsh on the peo­ple be­cause by just jack­ing up the fine, it’s the poor peo­ple that have to pay it.”

At the same time, Sama­roo said those in­tend­ing to op­er­ate per­ma­nent­ly with­in the in­dus­try should pur­sue reg­is­tra­tion.

“If they have plans on do­ing it per­ma­nent and some­thing as a long-term ven­ture, yes, they should reg­is­ter.”

Tan­coo, mean­while, main­tains that the pro­posed in­crease sim­ply strength­ens penal­ties for in­di­vid­u­als al­ready op­er­at­ing out­side of the law.

“Those who have been break­ing the law need to stop do­ing so im­me­di­ate­ly and get their house in or­der. And then at that point, they too will not be li­able to the fine.”