Port-of-Spain Mayor Louis Lee Sing plans to turn the homes of East Port-of-Spain residents into businesses as part of a campaign to move his burgesses out of a life of crime and poverty into one of entrepreneurship.On October 25, Lee Sing told a Rotary Club of Port-of-Spain luncheon at Goodwill Industries, off Wrightson Road, Port-of-Spain, that the people of East Port-of-Spain have been abandoned by successive governments since independence and the time had come to move them from their state of desperation to being entrepreneurs and business owners.
Lee Sing said for business to succeed in that area, there was a need for capital, labour and space.He said: "I believe that the capital is available, we have excess labour and the issue of space can be dealt with."The mayor pointed to the success of selling doubles, which, he said, was now "big business in T&T" and demonstrated that people's homes could become economic spaces.He said the time had come for the people of East Port-of-Spain to embrace business and not see businessmen as bad.
Lee Sing told Rotarians he has been in discussion with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to source funding for his development programme.Lee Sing said everything in East Port-of-Spain has decayed. "When you look, you see everything east of Charlotte Street has decayed and west of it, there is some decay, but nothing as significant as that of East Port-of-Spain. Then, as you head further west into Woodbrook, you get to the jewel of the city where every businessman wants a piece of."
He urged Rotarians to assist him in elevating those in the depressed parts of the city.Lee Sing said it is a place full of narrow streets, lanes, tracks and steps, including steps that lead to nowhere.He said it is also a place with a rich history, including one that produced many of the leading sons and daughters of T&T, who, on achieving success, tend to move out of the community.Lee Sing told Rotarians that life cannot be simply about making plenty money, but that the best and brightest must invest in and rebuild their communities.
Many goals, few achieved
During his budget presentation last month, Finance Minister Winston Dookeran revealed a plan for East Port-of-Spain, inclusive of the restoration of Fort Picton in Laventille, which is in close to the Lady of Fatima Church, Desperadoes steelband and Churruca's Observatory.Dookeran said over the years, numerous development initiatives for East Port-of-Spain have not achieved their goals and the community has grown wary of these efforts, particularly those which have not sought residents' views.
He said the project is being developed in partnership with the East Port-of-Spain Council of Community Organisations, the Caribbean Network for Urban and Land Management at UWI, the East Port-of-Spain Development Company, and other key stakeholders.Lee Sing said the mayor of Port-of-Spain is an essential sponsor to this project and has been involved with the ongoing negotiations with the Inter-American Development Bank through the Ministry of Finance.
In the budget statement, Dookeran said: "This initiative is part of a wider 'Emerging and Sustainable Cities Initiative,' supported by the Inter-American Development Bank, of which Port-of-Spain has been chosen as one of the five pilot cities from 170 eligible cities in the hemisphere."
Churruca's Observatory
According to Citizens for Conservation's Web site, araneo.info/trinidad-tobago, Don Cosmo Damien Churruca was a Spanish officer and well known as a scientific navigator. In 1792, he was appointed to lead the expedition to fix the longitudinal points in the New World relative to Cadiz, Spain.He arrived in Trinidad on July 21, 1792, and with the permission of the Spanish Governor Don Jose Maria Chacon, proceeded to establish an observatory at Laventille. The observatory is situated adjacent to the Roman Catholic Church. A plaque incorrectly identifies the ancient structure as "Fort Chacon."
On January 2, 1793, Churruca made geographical and astronomical history by observing with great precision the immersion of the third satellite of Jupiter in the disc of the moon and also that of the first satellite.From his observations, he fixed, for the first time, an accurate meridian in the New World.On January 28, 1793, Churruca dismantled his observatory and sailed to Grenada and then back to Spain.