Give Jwala Rambarran a chance.

This was the exhortation yesterday of Planning Minister Dr Bhoe Tewarie to critics of Rambarran's appointment as Central Bank Governor.

Tewarie said a lot of the criticisms were unfounded and unfair. He recalled that when he (Tewarie) became principal of the UWI St Augustine Campus, there were persons who launched "a vicious attack" on him.

"And if you look at my record at the UWI after seven years of principalship, you would see it was the period in which it was the largest and fastest growth of higher education, you would see it was the period of the greatest and most significant construction at the University of the West Indies and you would see it was the time in which that campus became the first wireless campus in the entire Caribbean and in which technology was deployed as never before," he said.

"So I think we should give Mr Rambarran a chance to settle down and do his job and not prejudge him on the basis of whatever impressions or notions we might have of what a Governor of a Central Bank should look like, or what credentials he should have, or what he should come into office as or how old he should be," Tewarie said.

He said the Cabinet took a decision after due consideration of a number of candidates and he (Tewarie) was "absolutely comfortable" with the decision to appoint Rambarran.

Tewarie also announced that Cabinet had agreed to the establishment of TTInvest which would serve as a co-ordinating agency for all new investments coming into the country. This agency would act as "the national shop window to the investor and as a point of access for potential foreign investors and to facilitate all requirements including regulatory approvals".

The chairman of all the main institutions which are part of the network of attracting investments and executing investments will sit on the board of TTInvest, Tewarie said.

They would include ETECK, Tourism Development Authority, Trinidad and Tobago International Financial Centre Management, National Energy Corporation, Economic Development Board, Council for Competitiveness and Innovation and Trinidad and Tobago Free Zone Company Ltd.

"They would walk the investor though the hoops so to speak so that the investor does not have to do the walking once the investment is approved," the minister stated.

"TTInvest would be the national investment promotion institution ... functioning as a one-stop shop in which the agency does the walking and securing of approvals for the investors," he said.

He said the investor can go to one place to have all the issues taken care of and the investors would be dealt with more quickly. He said given the critical role of investment in job creation, the establishment of this agency could only benefit the country.