RAPHAEL JOHN LALL

With projects like the high­way to Point Fortin, the Mit­subishi Methanol to petro­chem­i­cal plant and the Point Fortin hos­pi­tal in the south west­ern penin­su­la that have start­ed or are on the draw­ing board, Nigel Mi­nors, pres­i­dent of the South West­ern Cham­ber of Com­merce, is hop­ing they bring much-need­ed de­vel­op­ment to the area.

"In 2012 we ex­pe­ri­enced a num­ber of high points and a few dis­ap­point­ments. De­spite promis­es made in the re­cent past, there re­mains a num­ber of con­cerns with re­gard to the de­vel­op­ment of the south­west­ern penin­su­la. With this in mind, this cham­ber has formed an al­liance with the Pe­nal/Debe and Siparia Cham­bers to meet and treat with key is­sues in the penin­su­la as a unit­ed voice," he told the Busi­ness Guardian.

The south­west­ern re­gion has been a hotbed of un­rest and con­tro­ver­sy in 2012 over the planned high­way to Point Fortin. From Dr Wayne Kublals­ingh's 21-day hunger strike to protests over how the high­way should be built to con­trac­tors com­plain­ing that not enough lo­cal con­tent is be­ing used.

The area has long been re­gard­ed as un­der­de­vel­oped with high lev­els of pover­ty, de­spite hold­ing large re­serves of Trinidad's nat­ur­al re­sources.

The Eu­ro­pean Union (EU)-spon­sored pover­ty re­duc­tion pro­gramme, lo­cat­ed in the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment, com­mis­sioned a Sur­vey of Liv­ing Con­di­tions in 2007, which showed that 24.6 per cent of the res­i­dents of the Point Fortin area fell un­der the pover­ty line.

In­fra­struc­ture

One of the first things the South West­ern Cham­ber of Com­merce is do­ing is "to push for con­struc­tion of the high­way from both ends."

"This will si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly stim­u­late eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty in two ar­eas. To date, we have not seen any of the ben­e­fits since the start of con­struc­tion. Ac­cord­ing to Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny ltd (Nid­co), Petrotrin has been giv­en $50 mil­lion to start cap­ping oil wells in the Point Fortin area in prepa­ra­tion for lat­er road works. This is a ma­jor part of na­tion­al eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty," he said.

The cham­ber wants in­creased lo­cal con­tent in the project.

"But we re­ceived no de­tails of the time­frames for com­ple­tion. We are al­so hop­ing that si­mul­ta­ne­ous ac­tiv­i­ty can al­so be­gin on the La Brea in­ter­change. At the heart of all this pro­posed ac­tiv­i­ty is the promise of lo­cal con­tent in­volve­ment, in which the cham­ber in­tends to play a ma­jor role," Mi­nors said.

Ma­jor in­dus­try

Trans­port Min­is­ter Chan­dresh Shar­ma in ear­ly De­cem­ber said the Gov­ern­ment will be seek­ing ex­pres­sions of in­ter­est for a port fa­cil­i­ty on 200 acres of land, which will be built in La Brea to han­dle an an­tic­i­pat­ed bil­lion-dol­lar ship­ping de­mand.

Shar­ma re­ferred to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar say­ing that T&T was look­ing to $20 bil­lion worth of in­vest­ment stem­ming from the Pana­ma Canal ex­pan­sion.

Shar­ma said this could see a pro­ject­ed 300-plus ships call­ing at T&T af­ter the port's 2015 pro­ject­ed com­ple­tion.

Against this back­ground, Mi­nors wants the Union In­dus­tri­al Es­tate in La Brea to be ful­ly utilised.

"With the Gov­ern­ment's de­ci­sion to dis­con­tin­ue the alu­min­im smelter, vi­able al­ter­na­tives must still be shared and im­ple­ment­ed. This will pro­vide much-need­ed jobs and busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ty in the La Brea and Point Fortin ar­eas," he said.

Mi­nors said in­creased de­vel­op­ment of the La Brea in­dus­tri­al es­tate stim­u­late eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty in the area.

En­ter Mit­subishi

In ear­ly De­cem­ber, the Min­is­ter of En­er­gy, Kevin Ram­nar­ine an­nounced that the Mit­subishi Cor­po­ra­tion of Japan will in­vest US$850 mil­lion in phase one of a methanol to petro­chem­i­cals project that will help ease the re­moval of the sub­sidy on cook­ing gas and diesel. This is planned for 50 hectares of land at Union Es­tate, La Brea.

The Mit­subishi Cor­po­ra­tion leads a con­sor­tium that in­cludes Mit­subishi Gas Chem­i­cals, Neal and Massy Hold­ings Ltd and IC­CL, a Unit­ed States-based com­pa­ny.

Mi­nors said there must be di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion of the econ­o­my from oil and gas.

"E-TecK space in Point Fortin must be ful­ly op­er­a­tional if we are to tru­ly be part of the di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion thrust away from en­er­gy de­pen­den­cy. In March 2012, the cham­ber was ad­vised by e-TecK that the park would be ready for oc­cu­pa­tion by the end of this year.

"But by April, how­ev­er, we were very dis­ap­point­ed to learn that the Gov­ern­ment took a de­ci­sion to use that very site to con­struct the Point Fortin hos­pi­tal. We still await a de­ci­sion ear­ly in 2013 on a new site, with the new time­frames for in­fra­struc­ture de­vel­op­ment to readi­ness for busi­ness oc­cu­pa­tion," he said.

Health and crime

Mi­nors lament­ed the de­lay in start­ing con­struc­tion of the Point Fortin hos­pi­tal.

"Un­for­tu­nate­ly, con­struc­tion of the Point Fortin hos­pi­tal, which was promised since in the 2011 bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion, is still to be start­ed, with no rea­son giv­en for the de­lay. In the mean­time, we no­ticed the con­struc­tion of the Chil­dren's Hos­pi­tal in Cou­va. We are hop­ing for some spe­cif­ic head­way on this project which is too long over­due," he said.

On Tues­day, Health Min­is­ter, Dr Fuad Khan re­act­ing to what Mi­nors said, call­ing it a "stu­pid state­ment."

"We are in the process of or­gan­is­ing the con­ces­sion­al loan. So that state­ment is re­gret­table and if they said that, they should apol­o­gise to the min­istry's staff who are work­ing very hard to see it hap­pen," he said.

Two Sat­ur­days ago, act­ing For­eign Af­fairs, Roodal Mooni­lal signed the agree­ment with Chi­na for the $950 loan for the chil­dren's hos­pi­tal in Cou­va.

Mi­nors al­so blamed crime for "ham­per­ing" busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ty.

"Crime con­tin­ued to be a scourge of our so­ci­ety in 2012. It con­tin­ues to ham­per busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ty and growth. With a sig­nif­i­cant per­cent­age of the bud­get go­ing to the (Min­istry of) Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty in the last bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion, we hope to see im­prove­ments in crime pre­ven­tion and de­tec­tion in 2013. In its sim­plest form, we des­per­ate­ly want to see more po­lice vis­i­bly pa­trolling on our high­ways and streets, and much high­er de­tec­tion and con­vic­tion rates."

Point Fortin left be­hind

Fran­cis Bertrand, a for­mer may­or and past pres­i­dent of the South West­ern Cham­ber, said the area is be­ing ne­glect­ed.

He said the Point Fortin hos­pi­tal is one ma­jor project the cham­ber had ex­pect­ed to take place, but this seems to have been put on the back burn­er in favour of hos­pi­tals in Cou­va and Ch­agua­nas.

Last Sep­tem­ber, Point Fortin res­i­dents protest­ed and called for bet­ter health­care with a new hos­pi­tal.

The 2012-2013 bud­get point­ed to the Point Fortin hos­pi­tal as one of the projects to be­gin in the 2013 fis­cal year.

"The project that is pri­or­i­ty to the Point Fortin com­mu­ni­ty is the Point Fortin hos­pi­tal. It seems the Point Fortin hos­pi­tal has been rel­e­gat­ed to the back again. Yet we are see­ing a loan from Chi­na for the hos­pi­tal in Cou­va and plans for a hos­pi­tal in Ch­agua­nas. So Point Fortin has been sin­gled out for spe­cial treat­ment once more," Bertrand said.

Mi­nors wants Nid­co to re­view the "cur­rent arrange­ments" of how sub-con­tracts are award­ed for the high­way project.

"Our cham­ber has been ad­vo­cat­ing that work should have start­ed on both sides of the high­way. Based on the pro­nounce­ments of the pres­i­dent of Nid­co, he has in­di­cat­ed that work has al­ready start­ed in terms of cap­ping off wells. There is al­so of the al­lo­ca­tion of con­tracts. We would al­so want small con­trac­tors and busi­ness­es in the area to ben­e­fit."

He said the Gov­ern­ment has pro­vid­ed few de­tails about projects.

"There have not been de­fin­i­tive state­ments about some of these projects the Gov­ern­ment has spo­ken about. We are go­ing to lob­by. From a busi­ness stand­point, there is some anx­i­ety as there is noth­ing new on the hori­zon for Point Fortin and the pa­tience of the com­mu­ni­ty is be­ing test­ed once again."

In­crease in lo­cal con­tent

Dr Dax Dri­ver, chair­man, Eco­nom­ic De­vel­op­ment Board (EDB), said peo­ple should not ex­pect to see im­me­di­ate de­vel­op­ments in 2013 in the south­west­ern penin­su­la, but wait un­til 2014 and be­yond.

"It is not short-term de­vel­op­ment, but de­vel­op­ment in the medi­um- and long term. These plants and projects take years to build," he said.

Dri­ver said many decades ago, that area had its de­vel­op­ment based around oil pro­duc­tion, but oil has been de­clin­ing and no new in­dus­tri­al projects were cre­at­ed.

"That area is a mix­ture of agri­cul­ture and in­dus­tri­al de­vel­op­ment. Now there is the high­way to Point Fortin, the agree­ment signed with Mit­subishi for the methanol to petro­chem­i­cal plant, and oth­ers, but we must be able to cre­ate em­ploy­ment," he said.

While many have been com­plain­ing about lack of lo­cal con­tent in projects, Dri­ver said one plus is that Neal and Massy, a lo­cal con­glom­er­ate, is in­volved with Mit­subishi Cor­po­ra­tion on the project.

UWI Debe project

Sahid Ho­sein, pres­i­dent Pe­nal/Debe Cham­ber of Com­merce, said it con­tin­ues to have di­a­logue with the South West­ern Cham­ber of Com­merce over de­vel­op­men­tal plans for the area.

"We want to have small­er in­dus­tri­al type es­tates in this part of the coun­try where small­er busi­ness­es can be part of. We want to have done this in con­text of the de­vel­op­men­tal poles that Gov­ern­ment had spo­ken about in its man­i­festo."

Ho­sein said, in prin­ci­ple, it sup­ports the high­way to Point Fortin project, but there must be prop­er stud­ies done and com­mu­ni­ca­tion with all stake­hold­ers.

"Pe­nal to San Fer­nan­do is about eight miles and yet it takes about one hour and 15 min­utes from here to there. So we need an ef­fi­cient high­way, but they must have prop­er stud­ies done. The Pe­nal/Debe area is prone to flood­ing and they should do hy­dro­log­i­cal stud­ies to en­sure there is no flood­ing dur­ing and af­ter con­struc­tion."

Ho­sein said there must be prop­er pro­cure­ment stud­ies for all pub­lic projects.

"We do not want the high­way to Point Fortin to end up like the Bri­an Lara Sta­di­um. When there are prop­er pro­cure­ment prac­tices, there is con­fi­dence for peo­ple to in­vest their mon­ey," he said.

Ho­sein is op­ti­mistic the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) Debe cam­pus will bring ben­e­fits.

"It has start­ed and once the project pro­gress­es and even­tu­al­ly fin­ish­es, there will be in­creased em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties for peo­ple in the area. We must look be­yond oil and gas," he said.

Min­is­ter of Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion and Skills Train­ing Fazal Karim said the cam­pus is be­ing built on 142 acres at a cost of $500 mil­lion.

The ini­tial project in­cludes a cen­tral li­brary, class­room build­ings for 450 full-time stu­dents, aca­d­e­m­ic build­ings for oth­er UWI pro­grammes, such as Roytec, res­i­dence halls for 100 stu­dents and a stu­dent union build­ing and recre­ation­al fa­cil­i­ties.

Karim said the pro­posed time­frame for con­struc­tion was 18 months and was hope­ful it should be com­plet­ed be­fore the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion.

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