SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

A $14.4 mil­lion state-of-the-art com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre in Waller­field is fu­elling ten­sions be­tween Ja­cob Hill res­i­dents and the area’s farm­ers.

Ja­cob Hill res­i­dents are de­mand­ing that work re­sume on the stalled Red Gran­ite Street project, while farm­ers are lob­by­ing for a cen­tre of their own to meet their needs.

Farm­ers ar­gue Ja­cob Hill res­i­dents al­ready have ac­cess to the Waller­field Ac­tiv­i­ty Cen­tre on Sun­flower Street, built un­der the then Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment in 2013, and should not get a sec­ond fa­cil­i­ty. They say the new cen­tre should in­stead fo­cus on train­ing farm­ers in live­stock and crop pro­duc­tion to boost food self-suf­fi­cien­cy.

Both cen­tres are with­in close prox­im­i­ty in the La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro con­stituen­cy of Phillip Watts, who un­seat­ed PNM can­di­date Fos­ter Cum­mings in the April 28 gen­er­al elec­tion. Work on the new cen­tre be­gan un­der Cum­mings’ tenure but came to a halt sev­er­al weeks ago.

The $14,452,413.02 con­tract was award­ed to Vee’s En­ter­pris­es Ltd by the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T (Ude­cott), project man­ag­er for the Min­istry of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment. Signed on April 14, 2023, the con­tract en­vis­ages a fa­cil­i­ty with a gym, teach­ing kitchen, li­brary, of­fices, laun­dry, wash­rooms, el­e­va­tors, com­put­er lab and seat­ing for 270–300 peo­ple.

On Wednes­day, res­i­dents re­newed calls for con­struc­tion to restart, cit­ing ris­ing un­em­ploy­ment and “po­or­dom” in the com­mu­ni­ty.

Ac­cord­ing to the 2024/2025 Pub­lic Sec­tor In­vest­ment Pro­gramme, the cen­tre is just five per cent com­plete; on­ly its foun­da­tion has been poured. When the Sun­day Guardian vis­it­ed, the site was pad­locked and de­sert­ed.

A res­i­dent liv­ing op­po­site said the abrupt halt was dis­ap­point­ing.

“When you start a project, every­body ex­pect­ing work but it have none,” she said, adding that a po­lice sta­tion or school would have been more use­ful.

A near­by shop­keep­er spoke of grow­ing frus­tra­tion among un­em­ployed youth.

“So they look to thief. When these youth men have noth­ing to do, they find them­selves on the wrong side of the law. This is an on­go­ing is­sue,” she said, ac­knowl­edg­ing some “un­de­sir­ables” were dis­tress­ing the com­mu­ni­ty.

Out­side her par­lour, three young men with back­packs of tools pre­pared to search for jobs.

“The last few months have been hell,” the el­dest said. “Work has been hard to come by. Al­most every­where you turn, there are no va­can­cies.” The trio, skilled labour­ers, hope to be hired when con­struc­tion re­sumes.

Not all sup­port the project. Res­i­dent Ca­mul­lus Solomon called it a waste of tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey.

“And it al­ready have a cen­tre in the back up so…Why build this new cen­tre? We just wast­ing mon­ey.”

He be­lieves the cen­tre will not im­prove life for lo­cal youth.

Mean­while, Wayne Bowen said farm­ers are treat­ed as out­siders. “Ja­cob Hill see them­selves as a sep­a­rate com­mu­ni­ty. We have dif­fi­cul­ty us­ing the ac­tiv­i­ty cen­tre.”

Lo­ca­tion in ques­tion

Bowen not­ed the pre­vi­ous PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion re­lo­cat­ed sev­er­al squat­ters from State lands in Ja­cob Hill to build the new cen­tre, pro­vid­ing them free homes un­der the Vil­lage Im­prove­ment Pro­gramme and reg­u­lar­is­ing them through the Land Set­tle­ment Agency.

“So these peo­ple squat for years and break the law…and you re­lo­cate and give them new homes at no cost. But the farm­ers who are le­git­i­mate­ly here for decades…we can’t get a lease,” said Bowen, 73, who has reared live­stock since 1969. “Peo­ple just don’t care about farm­ers in gen­er­al. We have been ne­glect­ed and side­lined for years.”

He added farm­ers have been de­nied ac­cess to the ac­tiv­i­ty cen­tre for meet­ings. “The per­son who holds the key to the cen­tre is nev­er there. We would have to keep our meet­ings in a shed next to a mi­ni-mart, on the road or at Solomon Tem­ple, which is pri­vate­ly owned.”

Bowen ac­cused politi­cians of favour­ing Ja­cob Hill be­cause of its clus­tered votes.

“The farm­ing com­mu­ni­ty is scat­tered. And we are seen as ir­rel­e­vant.”

He called the $14.4 mil­lion cen­tre “a waste of time” and said farm­ers must cram in­to a small Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture of­fice for train­ing.

For­mer Waller­field Farm­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Lisa Perez echoed Bowen’s view.

“We should have got­ten a com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre in Waller­field be­cause Ja­cob Hill al­ready has an ac­tiv­i­ty cen­tre. It’s dis­heart­en­ing.” She said farm­ers have plead­ed in vain for such a fa­cil­i­ty, de­spite there be­ing about 500 farm­ers in the area.

On Thurs­day, Cum­mings told the Sun­day Guardian he was un­aware work had stopped. He said the ac­tiv­i­ty cen­tre had be­come too small for Waller­field’s grow­ing pop­u­la­tion.

“But the com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre that we pro­posed to con­struct, which we start­ed be­fore I left of­fice, was for all of Waller­field,” he said, adding there were plans to con­vert the ac­tiv­i­ty cen­tre in­to a sub-of­fice for the MP to make ac­cess eas­i­er for con­stituents.

Cum­mings said he hoped the bud­get would pro­vide funds to com­plete the cen­tre, which he de­scribed as “very much need­ed.” He vis­it­ed the site ear­li­er this year seek­ing an up­date. “I was not very hap­py that we hadn’t moved much faster…They did give me as­sur­ances that they had put things in place to ac­cel­er­ate the works. But then of course, the elec­tion came up­on us.”

He said pay­ment de­tails were a mat­ter for Ude­cott and the min­istry.

What­sApp mes­sages sent Wednes­day to Watts and Com­mu­ni­ty and So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin about the two cen­tres went unan­swered. Ben­jamin said she would “get back to us.” Ude­cott de­clined com­ment.