KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

Laven­tille West MP Ka­reem Mar­celle is call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to im­me­di­ate­ly ap­point a board of di­rec­tors for the East Port-of-Spain De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny, ques­tion­ing whether the pro­longed de­lay sig­nals an in­ten­tion to shut down the com­pa­ny.

Mar­celle said it has been al­most a year and a half since the com­pa­ny has had a board. He al­so claimed 12 work­ers were sent home last week and sev­er­al oth­er con­tracts were not re­newed this year.

Mar­celle said the com­pa­ny is now op­er­at­ing with less than half of its reg­u­lar work­force.He claimed work­ers told him man­age­ment at­trib­uted the job cuts to a lack of Gov­ern­ment fund­ing to con­tin­ue nor­mal op­er­a­tions.

At an Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment me­dia brief­ing yes­ter­day, Mar­celle said the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion al­lo­cat­ed $15 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly to the com­pa­ny. He said that al­lo­ca­tion was cut in half un­der the cur­rent Gov­ern­ment, but no mon­ey has been re­leased to date.

He called on the Gov­ern­ment to ap­point the board and en­sure fund­ing is pro­vid­ed in the next fis­cal year for in­fra­struc­ture, so­cial and eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment and the re­gen­er­a­tion of com­mu­ni­ties in East Port-of-Spain.

“This UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion is sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly at­tack­ing East Port-of-Spain and we must stand against it,” Mar­celle said.

“I call on this UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion to ap­point its board of di­rec­tors to the East Port-of-Spain De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny to en­sure that in the next fis­cal they prop­er­ly al­lo­cate monies for our phys­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture de­vel­op­ment, our so­cial and eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment, our re­gen­er­a­tion of com­mu­ni­ties in East Port-of-Spain, to give us our fair share of this na­tion­al pie.”

Mar­celle said the lack of fund­ing was hav­ing a di­rect im­pact on the com­pa­ny’s abil­i­ty to car­ry out its work and main­tain em­ploy­ment.

He said the sit­u­a­tion was par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cern­ing giv­en the needs of young peo­ple in the con­stituen­cy and the wider East Port-of-Spain com­mu­ni­ty.

The state-owned East Port-of-Spain De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny op­er­ates un­der the Min­istry of Hous­ing.

At­tempts to con­tact Hous­ing Min­is­ter David Lee for com­ment on the is­sue were un­suc­cess­ful up to press time.

Mar­celle al­so ques­tioned why the com­pa­ny’s pro­grammes had not been restart­ed.

“Is it that the min­is­ter can’t find his way to do a Cab­i­net note? Is it that the Cab­i­net note reached and the ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter, who pre­tend­ed that she loves our young peo­ple pri­or to elec­tion, is it that the Cab­i­net note came to her Cab­i­net and she did not ap­prove it?” he asked.

“We call for an­swers to­day as to when CCC will be restart­ed. We de­mand, as young peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, as the Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Laven­tille West, where there are many of my con­stituents who have left school, who might have dropped out of school, who might have fin­ished school, who are on the block and they are wait­ing for op­por­tu­ni­ties.”