Kali­fa Clyne

The restora­tion of Fort Pic­ton in Laven­tille has been iden­ti­fied by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an as one of the her­itage sites in East Port-of-Spain's trans­for­ma­tion in­to a Her­itage City.Dook­er­an said this dur­ing his bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion yes­ter­day at Tow­er D of the In­ter­na­tion­al Wa­ter­front com­plex.He de­scribed the ini­tia­tive as a mech­a­nism to lever­age the cul­tur­al and build­ing her­itage to im­prove the eco­nom­ic health of the area."The his­to­ry of East Port-of-Spain is the his­to­ry of Trinidad and To­ba­go," said Dook­er­an.

Dook­er­an de­scribed Port-of-Spain May­or Louis Lee Sing as an es­sen­tial spon­sor to the project.He said Lee Sing had been in­volved with the on­go­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions with the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank through the Min­istry of Fi­nance.In a brief tele­phone in­ter­view Lee Sing said for too long East Port-of-Spain had been viewed and treat­ed as a prob­lem.Say­ing it was time the com­mu­ni­ty was looked at as a so­lu­tion, he said the sus­tain­able city project is in­tend­ed to en­cour­age res­i­dents of East Port-of-Spain to be in­de­pen­dent."It en­cour­ages the idea that their homes could be­come a cen­tre for eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty," said Lee Sing."I am hop­ing that we can soon en­ter in­to phase two of the project where we can en­cour­age the res­i­dents to take their des­tiny in their own hands," he said.