Activist: East PoS residents living with unkept promises (with CNC3 video)

Activist Gregory Lee Kin says east Port-of-Spain residents have been bamboozled and fed broken promises by successive T&T governments. He was speaking at a lecture and discussion on the theme, Planning for Sustainable Development: People Leading Development of their Communities, at City Hall, Port-of-Spain, on Monday.

It was organised by the Ministry of Planning and Sustainable Development, in collaboration with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Port-of-Spain City Corporation. Earlier in the morning, the ministry launched the Emerging and Sustainable Cities Initiative (ESCI) at the East Port-of-Spain Regional Complex, Laventille, which was attended by Planning Minister Dr Bhoe Tewarie and Laventille West MP Nileung Hypolite.

Port-of-Spain is one of five cities in Latin America and the Caribbean selected by the IDB for inclusion in the ESCI. The project involves improving the economic and social conditions of the east Port-of-Spain area. In the planning and execution of the project, a collaborative approach is being adopted, involving a number of government ministries and agencies, the Port-of-Spain City Corporation, the San Juan/Laventille Regional Corporation, the communities of east Port-of-Spain, Belmont and Gonzales, the private sector and the IDB.

“Ever since Independence, we’ve been living with only promises and unkept promises,” Lee Kin said. “We’ve been bamboozled and misguided in east Port-of -Spain. I don’t trust you all from the ministry and the government agencies because of the years of broken promises and false hope. “I want to see real development for east Port-of-Spain and not manipulators and promise breakers,” he said.

Update: East POS residents continue protest over salary offer

Economist Dr Ralph Henry, of Kairi Consultants, said areas of concern were in education and allocated funds from the 2013 budget which he said were disbursed to the relevant ministries but very little reached east Port-of-Spain. The IDB’s Andres Blanco said as soon as the ETH Zurich University team of students and professors collated all the data on east Port-of-Spain, the next stage was to move from concept to implementation.

Also present at the lecture were IDB fiscal and municipal development specialist for T&T Gabriel Nagy and ETH University faculty members Lindsey Sherman, Michael Contento and Lea Ruefenacht.