Businesses lose millions in potential sales

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Businesses in T&T yesterday lost millions of dollars in sales as they suffered from a lack of power caused by a national blackout.

Chief executive officer of the Trinidad Chamber of Industry and Commerce Ian De Souza told Guardian Media that while it is difficult to quantify, it is obvious that the extent of loss of sales and opportunity would have cost businesses millions.

“The economic cost will be considerable given the situation where many businesses were unable to operate today (yesterday) and the reality for most business involved in retail or even manufacturing you need to be able to have access to communication, access to internet, WhatsApp and a lot of things were not working today that are crucial for simple operations in retail and other kinds of businesses,” De Souza told Guardian Media.

According to a release from T&TEC at approximately 12.50 pm yesterday, there was a major disturbance on the electricity system which disrupted supply to customers in Trinidad. The cause of the problem was at the time unknown.

“Engineers and other technical staff, led by the general manager Mr Kelvin Ramsook, are currently focused on resolving the matter as quickly as possible. T&TEC’s Independent Power Producers are restarting all their generators, to begin a gradual restoration of supply to all customers. The process of restarting and restoration will take approximately two to three hours,” the T&TEC release stated.

President of the Arima Business Association Christian Rampersad said while it was impossible to quantify the losses, businesses in the borough would have been severely affected due to significant opportunity lost.

He said, “Let’s take a fuel station for example. The owner would be paying people for the day to operate a station that relies so heavily on cash and margins to simply sit there with nothing to do.”

Power was not restored for more than six hours in most of the country.