An­na-Lisa Paul

"We want it."

"Give it a chance."

"We need this now that they are shut­ting down Petrotrin."

"It will bring re­al ben­e­fits to the area and I need a job...even if it just as a clean­er."

"The youths here need some­thing to do and to have some­thing to be­lieve in as we have noth­ing now."

These are the words of res­i­dents both in La Brea and Point Fortin who say the La Brea Dry-Dock Project wil be wel­comed with open arms.

Mind­ful that T&T lost a gold­en op­por­tu­ni­ty in 2017 af­ter BP opt­ed not to build the An­gelin plat­form in La Brea—due main­ly in part to in­dus­tri­al protests and con­trac­tu­al de­lays—Gov­ern­ment is hop­ing his­to­ry will not re­peat it­self this time around.

How­ev­er, of­fi­cials at La Brea MP Nicole Ol­livierre's of­fice ex­pressed a de­gree of scep­ti­cism as they said, "The proof is in the pud­ding. They can say any­thing now but their ac­tions down the road will speak their truth."

Ap­peal­ing to peo­ple to give the project a chance, the of­fi­cials said, "Come on board and do your best. It is an op­por­tu­ni­ty for the area to shine and in a time when the econ­o­my is so dim, La Brea is get­ting a won­der­ful op­por­tu­ni­ty to show­case it­self."

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Franklin Khan has al­so urged res­i­dents to grasp the op­por­tu­ni­ties the project would bring as he ap­pealed to them not to be in­flu­enced by those who could scare off po­ten­tial in­vestors as was the case pri­or.

Signed by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley on Sep­tem­ber 7 Gov­ern­ment, through the Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (Nid­co), en­tered in­to a Co­op­er­a­tion Agree­ment with Chi­na Har­bour En­gi­neer­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (CHEC) for the de­vel­op­ment of dry-dock­ing fa­cil­i­ties at La Brea.

The deal with CHEC is part of Chi­na’s larg­er Belt and Road Ini­tia­tive—a US $4 tril­lion project os­ten­si­bly de­signed to in­crease trade and cul­tur­al ties be­tween Chi­na and the rest of Asia along the old Silk Road Route.

A ran­dom poll of res­i­dents, busi­ness own­ers, and vis­i­tors to La Brea and Point Fortin last week re­vealed they were in sup­port of the project.

Bren­da Cashe said, "It is a very good idea for the area and en­vi­rons. It is ex­cel­lent and see­ing as how we have this sit­u­a­tion with Petrotrin, it will off­set the fall­out from that."

Seat­ed in her bou­tique lo­cat­ed just off the Point Fortin Main Road, Cashe said she has been op­er­at­ing Roslyn's Dress Shop & Va­ri­ety Store for the past 20 years and wit­nessed the ben­e­fits and pit­falls that ac­com­pa­nied de­vel­op­ment in the en­er­gy sec­tor.

In­di­cat­ing she would wel­come any move to im­prove the lives of cit­i­zens, Cashe im­plored peo­ple to let good sense pre­vail.

She said, "It would not be the right thing to do to (scare off in­vestors) as in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, every­body wants bet­ter for his or her coun­try and if this is some­thing that will bring bet­ter­ment for the coun­try, I don't see why we would want to scare them off, that is not good at all. Give them a chance."

While Deb­o­rah Charles-Alexan­der was al­so in sup­port of it, she said cau­tion was need­ed as there was a pos­si­bil­i­ty that con­tra­band items could eas­i­ly be brought in­to the coun­try un­der the guise of trade and de­vel­op­ment.

Call­ing for greater se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures to be im­ple­ment­ed, the 58-year-old said the au­thor­i­ties must "get very se­ri­ous with it be­cause we al­ready have so many drugs and killing here, we don't want any more of that".

Dou­bles ven­dor In­dar Sam­lal said, "I wel­come it be­cause it will bring em­ploy­ment for the peo­ple and growth for the area."

Ad­mit­ting busi­ness had slowed con­sid­er­ably in the past cou­ple months, he was op­ti­mistic as he said, "It will be bet­ter for us."

Sam­lal, who has been op­er­at­ing his busi­ness for around 20 years, said, "Give it a chance. I see it as a plus for the area and for the coun­try."

Giv­ing his name on­ly as Michael, a 59-year-old fruit-ven­dor from the area was more scep­ti­cal. He ques­tioned, "They are do­ing a good thing, but how do we know they will give Trinida­di­ans work?"

He said he, how­ev­er, be­lieved in mov­ing for­ward with the eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment of T&T even if it meant cap­i­tal in­vest­ment com­ing from out­side.

Brac­ing for Petrotrin clo­sure

Ian "Sadiq" Nim­blett said, "From an em­ploy­ment and busi­ness stand­point, there are ben­e­fits to be de­rived by all. The kind of rev­enue it would al­so bring for­ward for La Brea and Point Fortin is enor­mous."

Fo­cus­ing on the fact that it will not on­ly be a dry-dock but a trad­ing fa­cil­i­ty, the 59-year-old Point Fortin res­i­dent added, "I think it is pro­gres­sive and time­ly es­pe­cial­ly with Petrotrin be­ing shut down, it will fill a void.

"We have to have a big­ger vi­sion, we can't stay think­ing neg­a­tive all the time be­cause this will bring a lot of ex­po­sure and im­prove­ments to lives and stuff. It is a pos­i­tive move."

Hop­ing it will be some­thing good for the peo­ple, Clau­dia Je­re­mi­ah is brac­ing for the fall­out from Petrotrin's clo­sure as she shook her head sad­ly and said, "It will soon be­come a ghost town."

Bar op­er­a­tor Sta­cy Alex­is said, "Any­thing that will bring em­ploy­ment for the peo­ple of the area, I am in sup­port of."

How­ev­er, she is fear­ful that the ben­e­fits may not be ful­ly re­alised by res­i­dents.

"Let them come be­cause we need em­ploy­ment and there are plen­ty of young peo­ple in these ar­eas who are not em­ployed and things are get­ting hard­er every­where."

'Bet­ter­ment for the area'

Sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments echoed through­out La Brea as res­i­dents there too, added their voic­es to wel­com­ing the fa­cil­i­ty.

Jean King, 62, jok­ing­ly said, "This old la­dy too look­ing for em­ploy­ment even if it is a clean­ing work. I am to­tal­ly hap­py as it will bring em­ploy­ment for the younger ones."

Ges­tur­ing to her hus­band as he cleaned un­der their mod­est wood­en house, King said, "I have a house which needs to be re­paired so some­where along the line, things will boost up."

Look­ing for­ward to the spin-off ben­e­fits, she said many stood to ben­e­fit in some way.

Pulling on the cig­a­rette clutched be­tween her right in­dex and mid­dle fin­gers as the rain poured down, King dis­missed those ready to rail against it as she said, "I would not say it is about the Chi­nese tak­ing over. I know the hard times and good times, I lived through it all when it was bal­anced and not bal­anced and I am say­ing give it a chance, it will be worth it. It could on­ly mean the bet­ter­ment of the area."

Dwayne Bish­op, 50, said, "It is a good thing and with Petrotrin clos­ing down, if it re­al­ly comes through, it will give the youths and them some­thing to do."

Sell­ing fruits for the past 30 years at the San Fer­nan­do Mar­ket, Bish­op, re­ar­rang­ing the fruits on his small ta­ble along the main road, said, "This will help out es­pe­cial­ly now, so I wel­come it."

Re­fer­ring to them­selves as the Mar­ket Cau­cus as they sought shel­ter from the rain, the group con­sist­ing of both old and young de­clined to of­fer names.

Claim­ing he was the voice of the group, a se­nior said, "When we see it start, it is on­ly then we will know if it is a good op­por­tu­ni­ty for the peo­ple of La Brea."

Wary of such promis­es, he said, "Re­mem­ber the Prime Min­is­ter told us when he won elec­tions we will get a ply board fac­to­ry and it is three years al­ready and noth­ing is go­ing on as yet."

A sec­ond man point­ed in the di­rec­tion of the La Brea In­dus­tri­al Es­tate as he laugh­ing­ly ex­claimed, "Hope­ful­ly is not an­oth­er promise...we keep­ing our fin­gers crossed! We not go­ing with his word just so, but once things start and we start to see progress, it will be a dif­fer­ent sto­ry."

Ac­cept­ing that it would be a time­ly ven­ture as it would ab­sorb some of the Petrotrin work­ers, one of the younger men present said, "It would make it hard­er for us who wait­ing to get work, as it will now have more peo­ple on the bread­line. We the youths just want a chance to make a dol­lar when the day comes. "

En­er­gy Min­is­ter urges res­i­dents to em­brace project

Two weeks ago, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Franklin Khan urged peo­ple to grasp the op­por­tu­ni­ties the fa­cil­i­ty would bring.

And he urged res­i­dents not to let those against it dis­rupt the po­ten­tial for de­vel­op­ment and eco­nom­ic turn­around.

He said, "If we do not get these types of ma­jor cap­i­tal in­jec­tion, our po­ten­tial for eco­nom­ic growth will be very dim."

Khan said Chi­na was the sec­ond largest econ­o­my in the world and its glob­al trade in goods had po­si­tioned it ahead of the US.

For­mer min­is­ter on lost op­por­tu­ni­ty

In April 2017, for­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Kevin Ram­nar­ine es­ti­mat­ed the de­ci­sion not to build the An­gelin plat­form in La Brea had cost T&T an in­vest­ment of ap­prox­i­mate­ly US $80 mil­lion or $550 mil­lion TT; di­rect em­ploy­ment of 200 jobs; work for ten sub­con­trac­tors of TOF­CO; busi­ness for around 100 sup­pli­ers of TOF­CO; loss of cor­po­ra­tion tax and VAT; and in­di­rect em­ploy­ment.

In ad­di­tion to the rep­u­ta­tion­al hit T&T suf­fered in the eyes of the in­ter­na­tion­al oil and gas fra­ter­ni­ty, Ram­nar­ine said the wast­ed op­por­tu­ni­ty was made more painful by the knowl­edge that it could have been avoid­ed.

At the time, Ram­nar­ine said, "We can­not con­tin­ue on this path of pro­gres­sive un­com­pet­i­tive­ness. If we do it will be­come our own road to serf­dom. The world of glob­al busi­ness is un­for­giv­ing and un­re­lent­ing. It waits for no man. While we vac­il­late, oth­er coun­tries in this hemi­sphere are mov­ing ahead."

PM de­fends CHEC

De­spite the knowl­edge that Chi­na Har­bour En­gi­neer­ing Co Ltd (CHEC) was once black­list­ed by the World Bank for bribery and fraud al­le­ga­tions, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley is adamant the project will move for­ward.

Al­though it has not yet been an­nounced ex­act­ly how much this ven­ture will cost T&T, Gov­ern­ment is hap­py with CHEC's de­ci­sion to ac­cept a 30 per cent eq­ui­ty in the new fa­cil­i­ty.

The com­pa­ny has been the sub­ject of neg­a­tive re­ports com­ing out of West Africa, Guinea, Bangladesh, and the Cay­man Is­lands, with re­ports al­leg­ing bribery, fraud or cor­rup­tion al­le­ga­tions be­ing lev­elled against it.

In June, the New York Times re­port­ed the out­go­ing Sri Lankan gov­ern­ment had signed a bil­li­on-dol­lar deal with the com­pa­ny, but the in­com­ing gov­ern­ment strug­gled to make pay­ments on those debts and was forced to hand over its new port as well as 15,000 acres of land sur­round­ing it.

Back in 2014, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) signed a sim­i­lar deal with the same com­pa­ny for the de­vel­op­ment of an eco­nom­ic zone, a trans­ship­ment port, and dry­-dock­ing fa­cil­i­ties.

About the La Brea dry-dock fa­cil­i­ty

An on­line video pro­vides a vir­tu­al lay­out of the pro­posed ship-yard which has been de­scribed as an ide­al eco­nom­i­cal­ly, lo­gis­ti­cal­ly, and en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly fa­cil­i­ty that will fea­ture two dry docks and 15 berths oc­cu­py­ing 361 hectares of land.

The first phase will fea­ture two dry docks and one berth for main­te­nance and re­pair of ves­sels.

Oth­er as­pects of the project will in­clude a pier; a nav­i­ga­tion­al ac­cess chan­nel; a turn­ing cir­cle and berth basin; land recla­ma­tion; revet­ments; work­shops; ad­min­is­tra­tion build­ings; a train­ing cen­tre; staff ac­com­mo­da­tions; sup­port fa­cil­i­ties and util­i­ties; and ac­cess roads.

It is pro­ject­ed to gen­er­ate ap­prox­i­mate­ly US $500 mil­lion in rev­enue an­nu­al­ly, which would rep­re­sent a 2.4 per cent ad­di­tion to the T&T's GDP.

Dur­ing the four year con­struc­tion pe­ri­od, it is ex­pect­ed that 3,500 di­rect and 5,700 in­di­rect jobs will be cre­at­ed.