Yvonne Webb

Point Fortin May­or Clyde Paul says he in­tends to use the 2014 Bor­ough Day cel­e­bra­tions to bring at­ten­tion to this part of the coun­try.Her said it seemed as though the oil and gas-rich town had been sin­gled out by the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion for pun­ish­ment as mon­ey was be­ing spent every­where ex­cept in the bor­ough."I want to tell peo­ple to be more mind­ful of what is hap­pen­ing in Point Fortin. Bor­ough Day is not just to jump and wine and fete. Use it to bring at­ten­tion to this part of our coun­try," he added.

Speak­ing at one of the sup­port­ing events at the launch of the event on April 19, Paul said the Bor­ough Day ac­tiv­i­ties could boost the lo­cal econ­o­my and help the burgess­es in light of prob­lems they were ex­pe­ri­enc­ing with cen­tral gov­ern­ment.He said an­nu­al­ly more than 30,000 vis­i­tors and res­i­dents con­verge in Point Fortin for the an­nu­al cel­e­bra­tion, yet the dis­trict's hos­pi­tal was not equipped for an emer­gency.

"We had the best ma­ter­ni­ty ward years ago, now it is un­der­staffed. Peo­ple say if you want to die, go to Point Fortin Hos­pi­tal," he added.The idea of a new hos­pi­tal for the bor­ough at a dif­fer­ent lo­ca­tion has been tossed around by suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments.Re­cent­ly in Par­lia­ment Point Fortin MP Paula Gopee-Scoon said there was ab­solute­ly no way she could go back to the peo­ple seek­ing a third term with­out a hos­pi­tal.

Paul al­so point­ed out that im­prove­ments to the Civic Cen­tre, which should have been trans­formed in­to a Per­form­ing Arts Cen­tre, has stalled.So too, he said, the Ma­haica Oval project as the Min­istry of Sports had re­fused to ap­prove mon­ey for its up­grade."Young, po­ten­tial foot­ballers are afraid to play here. The ac­com­mo­da­tion is in­ad­e­quate. I am ask­ing for $1 mil­lion to fix Ma­haica so young boys could ex­hib­it their skills," he added.

He al­so called for the in­tro­duc­tion of a wa­ter taxi ser­vice from Point Fortin to San Fer­nan­do to help ease the bur­den of res­i­dents, who some­times have to leave home as ear­ly as 3 am to get to Port-of-Spain and re­turn home af­ter 7.30 pm.Paul said such a ser­vice would make it much eas­i­er for peo­ple wish­ing to par­tic­i­pate in the cel­e­bra­tions, rather than be­ing stuck in traf­fic for hours.

De­spite these short­com­ings, he said, there were a lot of good things hap­pen­ing in the bor­ough and in­vit­ed the rest of the coun­try to come and en­joy what they had to of­fer for the 25th an­niver­sary of the cel­e­bra­tions.One of the main events is the Point Fortin Bor­ough Queen Pageant and May­or's Char­i­ty Ball, which will take place this Fri­day and Sat­ur­day re­spec­tive­ly.

Next Wednes­day, Point Fortin Jazz, fea­tur­ing jazz vo­cal­ist Vaugh­nette Big­ford, sitarist Mun­gal Patasar, ace pan play­er Ken "Pro­fes­sor" Philmore and oth­ers, will take cen­tre stage at the new Guapo Beach fa­cil­i­ty.Cel­e­bra­tions will cul­mi­nate on the week­end of May 3 and 4, with J'Ou­vert, tra­di­tion­al mas and pan-on-the-move, as well as a sail­ing re­gat­ta and drag­on boat fes­ti­val.