Phase one of the Tamana InTech Park is open and by September tenants are expected to open their doors to business, Trade, Investment and Communication Minister Vasant Bharath has announced.Construction of the building had been stalled for four years due to funding problems. Bharath said the building was 50 per cent completed when the People's Partnership came into office and the final cost of construction was $100 million. He described the project as another of the Government's achievements,
"It's just another deliverable made by the Government of T&T and the People's Partnership, that we would have completed this, and started the economic activity in this area, like what we are doing in the south-west peninsula with delivering the port," he said.The minister said he expected business activity to start by September.
"We are close to signing an agreement, we hope to do that this week. Once we sign the lease agreement this week, we expect that the tenants would be in by September of this year, they will actually be occupying prior to that, but they will be doing some indoor partitioning work that will allow them to start business in September."What we have to make sure is that we attract high-value tenants that will create high-value jobs for our people. That's really our first priority.
"The money has already been spent, there is nothing we can really do about that. We had an option of just leaving it alone and that would have been taxpayers' money down the drain. We've chosen instead to continue the work, to refurbish it, to put it in the order," Bharath said.Sieunarine Coosal, group executive chairman, Coosal's Group of Companies, said the building was in a dilapidated condition before his company started working on it.
"The building was left for four years, it was not completed, we got the contract, we won the bid and that's how we got involved in doing this project. The architectural work is highly complicated. We worked around the clock to get this building finished."He said his team comprised 20 members of management and more than 200 workers. The project was completed in one year and within budget.