Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Dr Sura­jrat­tan Ram­bachan has promised to make Christ­mas 2012 the "mer­ri­est ever," as he an­nounced an "ex­plo­sion" of work in Trinidad and To­ba­go. He promised to launch 600 projects na­tion­wide to jump­start the econ­o­my.

Ram­bachan, ad­dress­ing sup­port­ers at yes­ter­day's Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship pre-bud­get ral­ly at Mid Cen­tre Mall's carpark, Ch­agua­nas, put Fi­nance Min­is­ter Lar­ry Howai on no­tice that he will be ap­proach­ing him im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter to­mor­row's bud­get for fund­ing for 600 projects. "Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment is go­ing to kick-start the econ­o­my and 600 small con­trac­tors will be giv­en 600 projects in 600 com­mu­ni­ties," Ram­bachan de­clared.

He said the projects, which he did not elab­o­rate on, will pro­vide em­ploy­ment for 6,000 per­sons na­tion­wide. "It will be the mer­ri­est Christ­mas you will ever have un­der any gov­ern­ment," Ram­bachan said, to the de­light of sup­ports who toot­ed horns and waved flags. At the start of the event at 3 pm, the mall's carpark ap­peared scant as many sup­port­ers sought shade un­der trees and tents to avoid the af­ter­noon's blis­ter­ing sun.

By 5.30 pm, the sun­shine had fad­ed over the carpark and the crowd be­gan to spill over on­to the Uri­ah But­ler High­way and Ch­agua­nas Main Road. Ram­bachan, point­ing to the crowd, said, the pre-bud­get ral­ly was called by the peo­ple to "make it clear that the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship is alive and well and ready to rum­ble to 2015 and be­yond." He said, "If any­one had any doubt about the strength of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship, of the Gov­ern­ment, we are stronger to­day than we ever were."

A Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty he­li­copter cir­cled above and armed po­lice of­fi­cers kept watch over the crowd. Labour Min­is­ter Er­rol Mc Leod was list­ed to speak at yes­ter­day's ral­ly, how­ev­er, at the last minute he was dropped from the pro­gramme. Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Khadi­jah Ameen, MC at the ral­ly, said Mc Leod com­plet­ed an all-night ne­go­ti­a­tion for wages and was un­able to speak. Min­is­ter of Gen­der and Youth Af­fairs Mar­lene Coudray called on sup­port­ers to stand tall and stand firm and "do not be in­tim­i­dat­ed."