SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

The San Juan/Laven­tille Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (SJL­RC) has re­ceived a two-month ex­ten­sion from its land­lord, the Na­tion­al Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny Ltd (MTS Plaza), al­low­ing it to re­main at its ad­min­is­tra­tive of­fices in Aranguez.

The ex­ten­sion comes af­ter MTS is­sued no­tice on May 1 for the cor­po­ra­tion to va­cate the premis­es by the end of this month. The SJL­RC has oc­cu­pied the build­ing for the past 29 years.

In an ex­clu­sive sto­ry pub­lished in the Sun­day Guardian on May 24, SJL­RC chair­man Richard Wal­cott said the cor­po­ra­tion feared evic­tion as it strug­gled to se­cure al­ter­na­tive ac­com­mo­da­tion and had dif­fi­cul­ty reach­ing Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen on the mat­ter.

Wal­cott had warned that if no al­ter­na­tive of­fice space was se­cured by June 1, the cor­po­ra­tion’s 150 staff mem­bers and coun­cil rep­re­sen­ta­tives would be forced to op­er­ate from tents on the pave­ment out­side the MTS build­ing.

MTS, a whol­ly state-owned en­ter­prise, had in­formed the cor­po­ra­tion that it in­tend­ed to re­pur­pose the space cur­rent­ly oc­cu­pied by the SJL­RC.

Wal­cott claimed the move to evict the cor­po­ra­tion came short­ly af­ter the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress as­sumed of­fice.

He al­so ques­tioned the de­ci­sion, not­ing that the cor­po­ra­tion had con­sis­tent­ly met its rental oblig­a­tions.

“The cor­po­ra­tion al­ways paid its rent on time and had no out­stand­ing monies owed to MTS,” he said.

How­ev­er, Wal­cott con­firmed on Tues­day that MTS had re­scind­ed the ter­mi­na­tion no­tice and grant­ed the cor­po­ra­tion a two-month ex­ten­sion to fa­cil­i­tate its re­lo­ca­tion.

“So right now, the ball is in the hands of the min­is­ter, her min­istry and the Cab­i­net. They are to en­sure that we have ac­com­mo­da­tion be­fore Ju­ly 31. If they fail to do so, then the cor­po­ra­tion would have no oth­er choice but to close down,” he said.

On May 15, the cor­po­ra­tion’s chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer, Sher­ma Ed­wards-Joe­field, wrote to the min­istry’s per­ma­nent sec­re­tary, Pe­ter Mitchell, re­quest­ing ap­proval to oc­cu­py Roo­sevelt Place on Jat­tan Lane, San Juan, as the cor­po­ra­tion’s new ad­min­is­tra­tive head­quar­ters.

Ac­cord­ing to the let­ter, Roo­sevelt Place was iden­ti­fied as the on­ly vi­able op­tion ca­pa­ble of ac­com­mo­dat­ing the cor­po­ra­tion’s staff and op­er­a­tions.

The month­ly rental cost for the build­ing was es­ti­mat­ed at $263,000.

“Well, they have sug­gest­ed the build­ing that we spoke about. So I hope they are putting every­thing in place. They told us to look at it, so I guess they would have to find the mon­ey to pay the rent,” Wal­cott said.

He added that he has re­mained in com­mu­ni­ca­tion with Mitchell, who as­sured him that ef­forts are un­der­way to fi­nalise the arrange­ments.

Wal­cott said the cor­po­ra­tion’s 15 de­part­ments, com­pris­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly 170 staff mem­bers, have al­ready be­gun prepa­ra­tions for the move.

“We are hop­ing by the end of June, we will be ready to move,” he said.

The chair­man ac­knowl­edged that the re­lo­ca­tion process is ex­pect­ed to dis­rupt the cor­po­ra­tion’s op­er­a­tions.

“It will af­fect the smooth run­ning of the cor­po­ra­tion,” Wal­cott said.

In a What­sApp mes­sage to Guardian Me­dia last Sat­ur­day, Ameen said the cor­po­ra­tion would soon be re­lo­cat­ed.