Trinidad & Tobago

AI & Emerging Technology Cybersecurity & Data Protection Data & Analytics Economy & Markets IT & Digital Transformation

The Caribbean Is at the Foundation Stage of AI

October 18, 2026by Dr Dawkins Brown

Count only the artificial intelligence (AI) that is live, the laws that are in force and the results that are published, and the Caribbean scores 32 out of 100. The region is at the foundation stage of AI value and governance. That is the headline of the inaugural Caribbean AI Value & Governance Index (CAVGI),...

Audit & Assurance Board & Governance Business Development & Entrepreneurship IT & Digital Transformation Risk & Compliance Tax

What Digital Tax Means for Caribbean Retail and Manufacturing

October 3, 2026by Dr Dawkins Brown

Retailers and manufacturers now buy software, advertising and cloud capacity from abroad and sell through websites, marketplaces and chat apps. Digital tax reaches both sides of that ledger, and the margin effect is larger than most finance teams expect. Executive summary Caribbean retailers and manufacturers are no longer simply buyers and sellers of goods. They...

AI & Emerging Technology Business Development & Entrepreneurship Data & Analytics IT & Digital Transformation Regulatory & Standards Risk & Compliance Strategy & Transformation Tax

VAT at the Customer’s Doorstep: How Digital Tax Follows the Customer Across the Caribbean

September 29, 2026by Dr Dawkins Brown

Consumption tax on digital services follows the customer, not the supplier. For Caribbean firms selling across the islands, that principle turns on three practical questions: is the customer a business, where are they, and who collects? Executive summary Every Caribbean consumption tax regime for digital services rests on one idea: value added tax (VAT) or...

Advisory & Consulting Caribbean Business HR & People

When There Is No Scale: What Happens to Comparison When a Jurisdiction’s Pay Is Unsettled

August 23, 2026by Dr Dawkins Brown

Trinidad and Tobago’s Budget Statement 2026 records that public service wage negotiations remain outstanding for two periods: 2014 to 2016, and 2017 to 2019. The Government has instructed the Chief Personnel Officer to submit a revised offer. A jurisdiction can therefore be impossible to compare not because its data is hidden, but because its pay...

Data & Analytics HR & People Public Sector

Where the Data Is: What Caribbean Governments Publish About Pay, and What They Do Not

August 22, 2026by Dr Dawkins Brown

Of the five Caribbean jurisdictions we have examined in detail, exactly one publishes a schedule mapping established posts to salary scales. Jamaica’s Estimates of Expenditure for 2026/27 run to 716 pages and contain no salary scale codes anywhere. The source that turned out to be genuinely universal was one we had not expected to rely...

HR & People Public Sector

Total Reward: What Sits Outside Basic Pay, and Why We Changed Our Method

August 22, 2026by Dr Dawkins Brown

Across the Cayman Islands civil service, total remuneration is 1.29 times salary. For its senior management the figure is 1.36. And of the reward that sits outside pay, employer health care costs four and a half times what the pension promise does — 18.6 per cent of total remuneration against 4.0 per cent. That inverts...

Business Insights Economy & Markets HR & People Public Sector

Public Sector Pay in the Caribbean: Why It Cannot Currently Be Compared

August 21, 2026by Dr Dawkins Brown

A widely used international salary website reports that the highest-paid civil servant in Barbados earns about BBD 19,060 a year. The lowest substantive grade in the Barbados public service — the cleaner, the general worker, the maid — is paid BBD 25,891. The site’s ceiling sits twenty-six per cent below the real floor. This is...

Advisory & Consulting AI & Emerging Technology Audit & Assurance Board & Governance Business Development & Entrepreneurship Caribbean Business Crisis & Resilience Data & Analytics Dawgen Frameworks & Series Strategy & Transformation Training & Coaching

How to Expand Across Caribbean Markets

July 10, 2026by Dr Dawkins Brown

The Caribbean is not one market. It is a chain of small ones — and regional expansion fails when it is treated as the same business at a new address The Problem, Lived “Danielle” makes natural skincare products in Kingston — a brand strong enough that a Trinidadian distributor sought her out at a regional...

Accounting & BPO Audit & Assurance Board & Governance ESG & Sustainability

The Independent, Integrated Audit Firm: Why Caribbean Boards Need a Modern Regional Audit Partner

May 24, 2026by Dr Dawkins Brown

Nine articles into this series, the picture is reasonably complete. The modern Caribbean audit must engage substantively with revised risk-assessment standards, sharpened quality-management frameworks, digitised audit techniques, cybersecurity intersections, fraud and going-concern responsibilities, regulated-entity expectations, group audit complexity, and the arrival of sustainability assurance. The work has expanded in scope, deepened in technical demand, and...

Audit & Assurance Board & Governance ESG & Sustainability Risk & Compliance

Sustainability Assurance Arrives: What Caribbean Boards Must Know About ISSA 5000, IFRS S1 and IFRS S2

May 24, 2026by Dr Dawkins Brown

Of all the changes reshaping audit and assurance in this decade, none will land harder on Caribbean boards than the one this article addresses. Until very recently, sustainability reporting in the Caribbean was a voluntary activity — a corporate social responsibility statement, an annual report chapter on community engagement, a chairman’s narrative on environmental stewardship....

Older Posts