The pos­si­ble re-es­tab­lish­ment of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Hos­pi­tal­i­ty and Tourism In­sti­tute and the de­vel­op­ment of a med­ical mar­i­jua­na hub are among the plans of ac­tions sug­gest­ed by Plan­ning, Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs and De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Kennedy Swarats­ingh to the new ap­point­ed board of di­rec­tors of the Ch­aguara­mas De­vel­op­ment Au­thor­i­ty (CDA).

Min­is­ter Swarats­ingh dis­trib­uted in­stru­ments of ap­point­ment to the new board mem­bers at the head of­fice of the Plan­ning Min­istry in the Er­ic Williams Fi­nan­cial Com­plex yes­ter­day.

The new CDA mem­bers of the board are chair Calise Nar­i­nesingh-Mar­tin, deputy chair Kir­by Joseph and di­rec­tors Man­mo­han Balka­ran, Louis Per­ci­val An­tho­ny Nurse, Jamie Sarah Ed­wards, Nali­ni Goin­doo, Shelly Balkissoon, Dr Nali­ni Kokaram and for­mer deputy po­lit­i­cal leader of the Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty Fe­li­cia Hold­er.

In a news re­lease, the Min­is­ter called the en­hance­ment of tourism and en­ter­tain­ment on the penin­su­la as well as the re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion of the ho­tel school and the ex­plo­ration of oth­er ideas to con­tribute to na­tion­al eco­nom­ic en­hance­ment and op­por­tu­ni­ties for cit­i­zens.

TTHTI, bet­ter known as the ho­tel school, shut down op­er­a­tions at its Ch­aguara­mas home in Au­gust 2020 due to a com­bi­na­tion of fi­nan­cial chal­lenges re­lat­ed to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and a sig­nif­i­cant re­duc­tion in gov­ern­ment fund­ing in the years lead­ing up to its clo­sure.

Min­is­ter Swarats­ingh re­mind­ed the board of the im­por­tance of the Ch­aguara­mas penin­su­la to Trinidad and To­ba­go from an eco­nom­ic, his­tor­i­cal, en­vi­ron­men­tal and cul­tur­al per­spec­tive. The min­is­ter said there were some key items of at­ten­tion for the board, in­clud­ing a re­view of the fa­cil­i­ties and ameni­ties un­der the CDA’s re­mit; ad hoc prop­er­ty de­vel­op­ment; the aban­don­ment of derelict ves­sels in the sur­round­ing wa­ters; the pol­lu­tion of the ocean and the cur­rent state of leas­es.

The Board was al­so re­mind­ed of the agri­cul­tur­al des­ig­na­tion of parts of Ch­aguara­mas and the idea of the lands be­ing a key part of the de­vel­op­ment of a med­ical cannabis in­dus­try in Trinidad and To­ba­go was raised.

Swarats­ingh al­so told the board that the Ch­aguara­mas penin­su­la has the po­ten­tial to be a for­eign ex­change gen­er­a­tor for T&T and can build the econ­o­my through the de­vel­op­ment of en­tre­pre­neurs.

He said among im­por­tant is­sues for con­sid­er­a­tion were the need for a pol­i­cy for the is­lands in the west, com­mon­ly re­ferred to as Down the Is­lands, as well as the re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion of the yacht­ing sec­tor.

The min­istry’s re­lease stat­ed, “The new board was en­cour­aged to en­joy the ap­point­ment and to par­take in the nat­ur­al won­ders of Ch­aguara­mas to in­spire ideas for de­vel­op­ment that al­so take in­to con­sid­er­a­tion the care of nat­ur­al fea­tures such as the beach­es, trails, an­i­mals such as the ca­puchin and howler mon­keys and the his­tor­i­cal fea­tures and in­fra­struc­ture.”

Swarats­ingh im­plored mem­bers to keep the his­to­ry of the penin­su­la in mind while fo­cus­ing on mak­ing it an amaz­ing place for the her­itage, cit­i­zens and fu­ture well-be­ing of T&T.”

The Ch­aguara­mas De­vel­op­ment Au­thor­i­ty (CDA) was es­tab­lished by an Act of Par­lia­ment in 1972 to ad­min­is­ter and co­or­di­nate the de­vel­op­ment of the north­west­ern penin­su­la.