Click to view full size

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia on Sat­ur­day at his P and V Au­to­mo­tive head­quar­ters on Mulchan Sieuc­hand Road, Ch­agua­nas, Bab­wah said the gov­ern­ment should re­vert to the pre­vi­ous­ly an­nounced pol­i­cy of al­low­ing six-year-old ve­hi­cles, as out­lined in the 2025–2026 na­tion­al bud­get. The an­nounce­ment was made at the post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre on Thurs­day.

Bab­wah warned that the shift to eight-year-old im­ports could strain both buy­ers and fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions. He not­ed that banks may be re­luc­tant to fi­nance ve­hi­cles of that age, while in­sur­ance com­pa­nies may refuse to of­fer ful­ly com­pre­hen­sive cov­er­age.

Ac­cord­ing to him, the pol­i­cy change in­creas­es the risk of Trinidad and To­ba­go be­com­ing a “dump­ing ground” for de­fec­tive or de­te­ri­o­rat­ed ve­hi­cles.