Fish­er­men in the rur­al vil­lage of Par­latu­vi­er can look for­ward to a new jet­ty in the next fis­cal year, Sec­re­tary of In­fra­struc­ture, Quar­ries and the En­vi­ron­ment Kwe­si Des Vi­gnes says.

Speak­ing at this week’s post-Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil me­dia brief­ing at the Vic­tor E Bruce Fi­nan­cial Com­plex in Scar­bor­ough on Wednes­day, Des Vi­gnes said the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) wants a safe jet­ty for the fish­er­men.

To this end, he said the Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil had giv­en its ap­proval to en­gage the ser­vices of the Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Ltd (NID­CO) to de­mol­ish the ex­ist­ing jet­ty and con­struct a new one. “The blue econ­o­my is very im­por­tant to us here in To­ba­go and we see Par­latu­vi­er jet­ty and Par­latu­vi­er com­mu­ni­ty as a key port for the sus­tain­able ex­ploita­tion of the blue econ­o­my and fish­ing econ­o­my in par­tic­u­lar,” Des Vi­gnes said.

He said al­though the THA was fac­ing bud­getary con­straints be­cause of its al­lo­ca­tion from Trinidad, he in­tend­ed to make rep­re­sen­ta­tion to Chief Sec­re­tary Kelvin Charles for the jet­ty to be built.

“He (Kelvin Charles) has al­ready giv­en an in­di­ca­tion that he is very sup­port­ive of the project,” Des Vi­gnes said.

Area Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Far­ley Au­gus­tus said while he was hap­py to hear a new jet­ty will be built soon he had his doubts, as a new jet­ty was ear­marked for the area be­fore many times be­fore.

“It’s not the first time that the Par­latu­vi­er jet­ty was bud­get­ed for in a ‘new’ fis­cal year and I will now hold the Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil to its promise,” he told To­ba­go To­day.

He said the res­i­dents have been push­ing for a new jet­ty for “a long time... as the first jet­ty was nev­er prop­er­ly con­struct­ed in the first place.”

Au­gus­tus said the vil­lagers are al­so “de­mand­ing that the fish­ing de­pot fa­cil­i­ty that is an­nexed to the jet­ty, and for which a plat­form was built don­key years ago, is al­so com­plet­ed in the new fis­cal year.”

Pledg­ing his sup­port to as­sist in the com­ple­tion of both projects, he said his com­mu­ni­ty is “grate­ful for this re­newed promise and anx­ious­ly an­tic­i­pate this gift to the com­mu­ni­ty.”