A Na­tion­al Plan­ning Au­thor­i­ty (NPA) has been in­stalled. The Au­thor­i­ty aims to guide the route map to the next leg of de­vel­op­ment for this coun­try.  The 11-mem­ber Board of Di­rec­tors re­ceived their In­stru­ments of ap­point­ment from Min­is­ter of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Pen­ne­lope Beck­les to­day. Ac­cord­ing to a Press re­lease from the Min­istry, the in­stal­la­tion of the NPA sup­ports the work to ful­fil the goals of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment Strat­e­gy: Vi­sion 2030.

The fol­low­ing is a press re­lease from the Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment:

The Ho­n­ourable Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, Min­is­ter of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment is an­nounc­ing for pub­lic in­for­ma­tion the of­fi­cial in­stal­la­tion of the Na­tion­al Plan­ning Au­thor­i­ty (NPA) for Trinidad and To­ba­go. The 11 mem­ber Board of Di­rec­tors re­ceived their In­stru­ments of ap­point­ment from Min­is­ter Beck­les on Fri­day Ju­ly 8.
 
The Board, Chaired by Dr. James Arm­strong al­so com­pris­es Dr Shaquille Trot­man rep­re­sent­ing Non-Gov­ern­men­tal Or­gan­i­sa­tions; Mr Rahul Ram­per­sad (De­sign-Re­lat­ed Pro­fes­sion­al In­ter­ests); Ms Camille Spencer (So­cio-Eco­nom­ic Plan­ning); Ms Kather­ine Agong (Trans­porta­tion); Mr Mar­cus Rud­der (En­er­gy); Ms Stacey Ann Mar­shall (Nat­ur­al En­vi­ron­ment); Ms Mar­garet Mc­Dowall (Built Her­itage); Mr Bob­by An­drews (To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly), Mr Collin Par­tap (At­tor­ney) and Ms. Sharyl-Anne Haynes from the Trinidad and To­ba­go So­ci­ety of Plan­ners.
 
Min­is­ter Beck­les re­mind­ed the NPA Board that Au­thor­i­ty’s aim is to guide the route map to the next leg of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s con­tin­u­ing jour­ney of de­vel­op­ment. The Au­thor­i­ty aims to dove­tail both the poli­cies of Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment and the re­gion­al / lo­cal area plan­ning poli­cies, pro­vid­ing an over­ar­ch­ing frame­work for achiev­ing sus­tain­able growth and de­vel­op­ment across the coun­try in­to the fu­ture. As a key agent in the na­tion­al di­rec­tion of de­vel­op­ment, the NPA will help set the con­text for more de­tailed plan­ning pro­pos­als, poli­cies and de­ci­sion-mak­ing at all lev­els.
 
Dr. Arm­strong in­di­cat­ed that he was ex­cit­ed about ful­fill­ing the man­date of the leg­is­la­tion and his role in sup­port­ing phys­i­cal de­vel­op­ment in Trinidad and To­ba­go. The Chair added that he wants the oard to change the ap­proach to Plan­ning in Trinidad and To­ba­go and pledged his sup­port to the Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment and the State.
 
It is en­vi­sioned that plan­ning process­es, im­ple­men­ta­tion and en­force­ment will be holis­tic, en­com­pass­ing cul­ture, the en­vi­ron­ment, so­cio-eco­nom­ic pol­i­cy and the needs of com­mu­ni­ties across Trinidad and To­ba­go. This will as­sist in the al­le­vi­a­tion of some of the phys­i­cal prob­lems en­coun­tered reg­u­lar­ly in­clud­ing un­planned com­mu­ni­ties, flood­ing and traf­fic man­age­ment is­sues.
 
The in­stal­la­tion of the NPA sup­ports the Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment’s work to ful­fill the goals of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment Strat­e­gy: Vi­sion 2030, par­tic­u­lar­ly the goals un­der Theme I, Putting Peo­ple First and Theme II, Im­prov­ing Pro­duc­tiv­i­ty through Qual­i­ty In­fra­struc­ture and Trans­porta­tion. This al­so helps the Min­istry to achieve­ment its man­date re­gard­ing the at­tain­ment of Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals (SDGs) 9: to build re­silient in­fra­struc­ture, pro­mote in­clu­sive and sus­tain­able in­dus­tri­al­iza­tion and fos­ter in­no­va­tion and SDG 11: to make cities and hu­man set­tle­ments in­clu­sive, safe, re­silient and sus­tain­able