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Last Fri­day’s re­moval of Navin Dook­er­an as Ex­port Im­port Bank of T&T Ltd (EX­IM­BANK) CEO has sparked con­cern across the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, with cham­bers call­ing for ur­gent mea­sures to en­sure con­ti­nu­ity and sta­bil­i­ty at the state-owned fi­nan­cial fa­cil­i­ty.

The lead­er­ship shake­up comes even as for­eign ex­change short­ages re­main one of the most press­ing chal­lenges for busi­ness­es na­tion­wide, par­tic­u­lar­ly small and medi­um-sized en­ter­pris­es (SMEs).

Guardian Me­dia first re­port­ed on Dook­er­an’s dis­missal on Sat­ur­day. Con­tact­ed on the shock move by the Gov­ern­ment on Fri­day, Dook­er­an, who served as CEO for six and a half years, re­spond­ed briefly, “I am proud of what we ac­com­plished dur­ing my tenure, and I wish the best for the in­sti­tu­tion and the coun­try.”