New Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jear­lean John to­day met with the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s (UDe­COTT’s} ex­ec­u­tive team as she of­fi­cial­ly as­sumed min­is­te­r­i­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the state agency.

Un­der the pre­vi­ous Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion, UDe­COTT fell un­der the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter.

John, who pre­vi­ous­ly chaired UDe­COTT from 2010 to 2015, had over­seen the con­struc­tion of ma­jor pub­lic projects, in­clud­ing the Cou­va Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal, San Fer­nan­do Teach­ing Hos­pi­tal, sev­er­al po­lice sta­tions, and the Ma­yaro Fire Sta­tion.

She was ac­com­pa­nied by Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture So­nia Fran­cis-Year­wood and se­nior of­fi­cials dur­ing the vis­it to UDe­COTT’s Sackville Street head of­fice.

UDe­COTT’s CEO Tam­i­ca Charles and di­vi­sion­al heads briefed the min­is­ter and per­ma­nent sec­re­tary on the agency’s fi­nances, port­fo­lio of 118 projects, poli­cies, and op­er­a­tions.

The projects span mul­ti­ple sec­tors, in­clud­ing health, na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, ed­u­ca­tion, ports and her­itage.

UDe­COTT is still await­ing the ap­point­ment of its new board.