Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Works Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er has fired back at de­trac­tors who chal­lenged the Gov­ern­ment's abil­i­ty to fund the Gol­con­da to Point Fortin high­way ex­ten­sion, as he hand­ed over a $1.5 bil­lion cheque to Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Co (Nid­co) for the $7.2 bil­lion project yes­ter­day.Warn­er de­clared that yes­ter­day's cheque pre­sen­ta­tion cer­e­mo­ny, held at the same site where Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar turned the sod for the project on Jan­u­ary 25, would si­lence those who be­lieved "that we were jok­ing, that it was tom­fool­ery, garbage and that the work would not go on...that it would not start, we had no mon­ey, no fund­ing."As of yes­ter­day, Warn­er said, "trac­tors are now rolling out" sig­nalling the start of con­struc­tion work by con­trac­tor Con­struc­to­ra OAS and sub-con­trac­tor Na­mal­co.He said the $1.5 bil­lion, which is the first of four pay­ments for the project, was not bor­rowed but tak­en from gov­ern­ment re­sources.As he ad­mit­ted that the sec­ond pay­ment was not in hand, Warn­er, how­ev­er, de­clared the project would not be stopped at any cost.

"We shall look for bor­row­ings in­side and out­side the coun­try and if we don't feel to bor­row, we pay again from the in­side," Warn­er said."But the fact is, at no point in time shall be the lack of pay­ment, the lack of fi­nance at any time be a rea­son for this work not to con­tin­ue," he said.Warn­er said Nid­co chair­man, Dr Car­son Charles, as­sured him that eight in­ter­changes, 18 cross­roads and eight bridges would be con­struct­ed en route to Point Fortin and Debe.

"In do­ing so, we shall trans­form overnight the en­tire trans­porta­tion pol­i­cy and sys­tem in the South and the lega­cy this Gov­ern­ment leaves shall be a lega­cy of good trans­porta­tion in south Trinidad which was promised to them for more than 50 years," he added.Warn­er sound­ed a warn­ing to the con­trac­tors that he would be "vig­i­lant, ex­treme­ly vig­i­lant to en­sure" at least 40 per cent of the project has lo­cal in­put.He al­so called on them to ex­er­cise cor­po­rate so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty by mak­ing a con­tri­bu­tion to crick­et or foot­ball ex­ploits in the com­mu­ni­ties.

He as­sured res­i­dents that their land ac­qui­si­tion and re­lo­ca­tion would be seam­less and it would not take as long as the Orop­une Gar­dens. The com­pen­sa­tion, he said, would be fair.Charles, in his ad­dress, said ac­qui­si­tion of lands was al­ready un­der way.Ed­ward Mood­ie, pres­i­dent of the Debe/Point Fortin High­way Ac­tion Com­mit­tee, ap­pealed for psy­cho­log­i­cal ser­vices for res­i­dents af­fect­ed by the project. He said in his meet­ings with res­i­dents some­times the "vol­cano of anx­i­ety erupts."Warn­er, who in­vit­ed ques­tions from the me­dia at the end of the for­mal cer­e­mo­ny, re­spond­ed to queries in an abrupt and curt man­ner.

When asked why the mon­ey was ex­tract­ed from the Trea­sury and not bor­rowed, Warn­er re­spond­ed: "We had a change of heart. You don't bor­row mon­ey if you have it. I don't un­der­stand that kind of maths. If you have the mon­ey, why bor­row it."Ques­tioned fur­ther on the Gov­ern­ment's abil­i­ty to pay salary in­creas­es, Warn­er said: "You have mon­ey for in­fra­struc­ture and de­vel­op­ment and you have mon­ey for salaries and pen­sions."You don't take de­vel­op­ment mon­ey and pay salaries and pen­sion," he added.He de­clined re­sponse on the fir­ing of two Caribbean Air­lines (CAL) di­rec­tors stat­ing CAL was no longer un­der his port­fo­lio.