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The Na­tion­al En­er­gy Cor­po­ra­tion (NEC)-a whol­ly owned sub­sidiary of The Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go Ltd (NGC), which holds a vir­tu­al mo­nop­oly over tug­boat ser­vices at key ports in­clud­ing Point Lisas, has is­sued a board man­date re­quir­ing lo­cal ship­ping agents to pay for towage ser­vices ex­clu­sive­ly in US dol­lars.

This pol­i­cy over­turns a long-stand­ing prac­tice of fa­cil­i­tat­ing pay­ments in TT dol­lars.

While aimed at bol­ster­ing NEC’s for­eign ex­change (forex) re­serves, some ship­ping agents be­lieve this uni­lat­er­al de­ci­sion im­pos­es se­vere op­er­a­tional and cash flow bur­dens on lo­cal agents, threat­ens to in­crease trade fric­tion by forc­ing im­porters to pay in US cur­ren­cy, and es­tab­lish­es a dan­ger­ous prece­dent for oth­er state-con­trolled port ser­vice providers.