KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Faris Al-Rawi en­vi­sions the his­toric Har­ris Prom­e­nade as a lo­ca­tion for Lo­cal Eco­nom­ic De­vel­op­ment Booths and not an un­of­fi­cial home for the so­cial­ly dis­placed.

As the Rur­al De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (RDC) opened two $100,000 booths at Em­ba­cadere, San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day, Al-Rawi said thou­sands tra­verse the prom­e­nade through three schools, three church­es, the San Fer­nan­do Po­lice Sta­tion, High Court, City Hall and lawyer of­fices.

How­ev­er, he said, there was nowhere to buy a drink or food and sit down as 78 va­grants al­so oc­cu­pied the area. “But pic­ture now: classy booths all down the mid­dle, lights over the top. Pic­ture High Street run­ning af­ter four. Pic­ture High Street with Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice and park­ing where you can go down safe­ly, and the place is beau­ti­ful­ly cov­ered by sails all over your head, lit up at night,” Al-Rawi said.

He said lo­cal eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment was part of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Re­form, and the booths were his and the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment’s vi­sion, as it did not ex­ist any­where else. He said the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion has to ac­cept some plans and he hoped it will all get start­ed in the next fi­nan­cial year.

As the RDC con­struct­ed and out­fit­ted the booths at the bas­ket­ball court at Em­ba­cadere, Al-Rawi said many res­i­dents were jostling to get the spaces to start busi­ness­es. How­ev­er, he as­sured them that ten more booths were com­ing. He said Em­ba­cadere sits in par­adise with decades-old build­ings with thou­sands of peo­ple. How­ev­er, there was no of­fi­cial mi­ni-mart, bar or food out­let un­til now with the con­struc­tion of two booths. Al-Rawi said there was more to come in the com­mu­ni­ty as the beach­front un­der­went de­vel­op­ment with seat­ing and more busi­ness­es for res­i­dents to op­er­ate. He told them to get ready for busi­ness­es like jet ski rentals.

Al-Rawi said while every ma­jor town or city had a main street, of­ten called High Street, re­tail de­vel­op­ment was de­clin­ing as it com­pet­ed with on­line sales and malls. He said busi­ness­es need­ed foot traf­fic to make a dol­lar on High Street and is cru­cial for de­vel­op­ing lo­cal eco­nom­ic zones.

“Where­as Fred­er­ick Street was busy and High Street was busy, and you were sure to make a dol­lar there, they are now ghost towns af­ter four in the af­ter­noon, and if you look at any one of our main streets in this coun­try, to go and shop on a ‘high street’, you have to be break­ing ‘biche’ be­cause the open­ing hours are eight to four; you have to have a day off from work, you have to be un­em­ployed. How do you shop be­tween eight to four if you are work­ing,” Al-Rawi said.

San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris said the booths opened in Pleas­antville were over­sub­scribed, and the op­por­tu­ni­ty was cre­at­ing small and mi­cro-en­tre­pre­neurs in the city.