SHAS­TRI BOODAN

Richie Sookhai, Pres­i­dent of the Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (CCIC) has con­firmed that his or­ga­ni­za­tion has en­tered in­to talks with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA), and the Su­per­mar­kets As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (SATT), to use their in­fra­struc­ture to vac­ci­nate Cham­ber mem­bers and their staff.

Sookhai was speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia on Thurs­day June 10, at mass vac­ci­na­tion site set up at the Cen­tre Pointe Mall in Ch­agua­nas, or­gan­ised by the SATT.

“We are look­ing to work with the Min­istry of Health to get at least 2,000 vac­cines,” Sookhai said.

“We have seen the pri­vate-pub­lic part­ner­ship work­ing well and smooth­ly with the TTMA and the SATT and it is more suc­cess­ful and or­der­ly,” the Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber boss point­ed out.  

“We at the CCIC want to en­sure that vac­ci­na­tions get off the ground to flat­ten the curve and we can all re­turn to a sense of nor­mal­cy in the short­est time pos­si­ble.  Com­pared to the pub­lic health cen­tres these op­er­a­tions by the TTMA and SATT are vac­ci­nat­ing more per­sons through their process,” he added.

Some 2,697 em­ploy­ees in the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor got their first vac­cine dos­es dur­ing the first pub­lic-pri­vate mass vac­ci­na­tion dri­ve for the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty— “Vac­ci­nate to Op­er­ate” —at the Di­vali Na­gar Site in Ch­agua­nas, on Sun­day June 6th.

The “Vac­ci­nate to Op­er­ate” dri­ve is a part­ner­ship in­volv­ing the Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA), the Min­istry of Health (MOH) and the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try (MTI).

On Tues­day, Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh an­nounced that a por­tion of dos­es will be made avail­able for di­a­bet­ics through the Su­per­mar­ket As­so­ci­a­tion’s mass vac­ci­na­tion pro­gramme, part of the na­tion­al “Vac­ci­nate to Op­er­ate” ini­tia­tive.

Mean­while, the Con­trac­tors’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTCA) has ear­marked Sat­ur­day to start vac­ci­na­tion of work­ers in the sec­tor.  TTCA pres­i­dent Glenn Ma­habirs­ingh con­firmed this week the Min­istry of Health al­lo­cat­ed 5,000 dos­es of the COVID-19 vac­cine to the con­struc­tion sec­tor.