KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is promis­ing 50,919 jobs on the way as she un­veiled an am­bi­tious Re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion Blue­print with a wave of in­fra­struc­ture projects.

Some of the projects will in­clude the re­pur­pos­ing of the Car­rera Is­land and Port-of-Spain pris­ons in­to event halls and re­sorts.

While the Prime Min­is­ter de­clared “T&T is open for busi­ness and every­one is wel­come,” her Works Min­is­ter, Jear­lean John, said aside from jobs, the projects will make T&T “un­recog­nis­able” in five years.

Ad­dress­ing the launch at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar called for col­lab­o­ra­tion among in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions, pri­vate sec­tor firms, and the pub­lic ser­vice as Gov­ern­ment em­barks on ma­jor up­grades to Port-of-Spain, San Fer­nan­do, Ga­le­o­ta Point, In­vaders Bay, and the prison sys­tem.

“In the com­ing years, you will see cranes pierc­ing the sky­lines of Port-of-Spain. In San Fer­nan­do, you will see dredges carve new hori­zons along the coast. You will see bull­doz­ers ready to go up to Tamana, Gold­en Grove, and along the San Fer­nan­do to Ma­yaro to Ga­le­o­ta High­way,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

The Prime Min­is­ter said cit­i­zens had long been call­ing for jobs, not­ing that the on­go­ing Na­tion­al Re­cruit­ment Dri­ve had at­tract­ed more than 110,000 ap­pli­ca­tions. While some ap­pli­cants ap­plied for mul­ti­ple po­si­tions, she said in­ter­views for pub­lic sec­tor jobs will be­gin next week, with pri­vate sec­tor op­por­tu­ni­ties to fol­low.

Ac­knowl­edg­ing that for­eign in­vest­ment will be crit­i­cal to the na­tion’s trans­for­ma­tion, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Gov­ern­ment would part­ner with for­eign gov­ern­ments, in­ter­na­tion­al banks, re­gion­al de­vel­op­ment in­sti­tu­tions, and pri­vate in­vestors. Plans for To­ba­go will be an­nounced soon.

Con­fi­dent in the coun­try’s strengths, she cit­ed T&T’s lo­ca­tion out­side the hur­ri­cane belt, its strate­gic po­si­tion bridg­ing the Amer­i­c­as, a skilled work­force, af­ford­able en­er­gy sup­ply, and sta­ble democ­ra­cy.

“We are the on­ly coun­try in the Caribbean with an in­vest­ment-grade sov­er­eign rat­ing. It means we can re­tain strong bor­row­ing and strong in­vestors in our coun­try.”

The Prime Min­is­ter added that T&T in­tends to mod­el its growth on na­tions such as Sin­ga­pore, Sau­di Ara­bia, the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, Bahrain, and Kuwait: coun­tries that once de­pend­ed heav­i­ly on en­er­gy but suc­cess­ful­ly di­ver­si­fied their economies.

She said she re­cent­ly held pro­duc­tive dis­cus­sions with the Kuwait Crown Prince and Sau­di rep­re­sen­ta­tives in the Unit­ed States, mak­ing it clear that “T&T is open for busi­ness.” While the coun­try seeks to en­ter Latin and South Amer­i­can mar­kets, she said it must al­so strength­en ties with tra­di­tion­al trad­ing part­ners.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced the cre­ation of over­sight and gov­er­nance com­mit­tees, the first of which will be chaired by the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter to mon­i­tor projects and cap­i­tal al­lo­ca­tion.

She stressed that the pub­lic ser­vice must play a cen­tral role in im­prov­ing the ease of do­ing busi­ness and re­mov­ing un­nec­es­sary bu­reau­cra­cy through mod­ernised gov­er­nance and re­vised ad­min­is­tra­tive sys­tems.

Min­is­ter of Works and In­fra­struc­ture Jear­lean John said the projects would make T&T “un­recog­nis­able with­in the next five years.”

“If we do this the way we’re lay­ing it out to­day, by 2030 you will not recog­nise the coun­try, and by 2035, you’ll be in a whole dif­fer­ent space,” John said.

She said Ex­pres­sions of In­ter­est were in­vit­ed yes­ter­day and would re­main open un­til mid-Jan­u­ary, with Re­quests for Pro­pos­als (RF­Ps) to be eval­u­at­ed by April. Some projects are ex­pect­ed to break ground by Au­gust 2026.

Among the ma­jor ini­tia­tives is the re­pur­pos­ing of the Car­rera Is­land, Port-of-Spain, and Gold­en Grove pris­ons. The Port-of-Spain Prison will be trans­formed in­to an ex­hi­bi­tion and events hall fea­tur­ing cre­ative spaces, class­rooms, and a rooftop restau­rant, while the Car­rera Is­land Prison will be­come Is­la Car­rera Re­sort, a 75-room bou­tique ho­tel.

“We are con­sol­i­dat­ing these in­to a ma­jor fa­cil­i­ty, one where we will tru­ly have jus­tice on time,” John said, re­fer­ring to the pro­posed Tamana Prison Cam­pus, which will house all cor­rec­tion­al and train­ing fa­cil­i­ties on one 500-acre site.

John al­so out­lined plans for a Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Cam­pus, uni­fy­ing var­i­ous agen­cies for rapid, co­or­di­nat­ed re­spons­es to lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al threats.

The San Fer­nan­do wa­ter­front de­vel­op­ment will fea­ture 1,800 res­i­dences, shops, cafés, a 50-berth ma­ri­na, a five-star ho­tel and con­fer­ence cen­tre, and the re­stored Plaza San Car­los. The Health City South project will con­vert the lega­cy hos­pi­tal in­to a med­ical school.

The San Fer­nan­do to Ma­yaro High­way, a 100km route, is al­ready in mo­tion, with the first phase out for ten­der. Ad­di­tion­al phas­es and up­grades to the Port of Ga­le­o­ta will fol­low.

Gov­ern­ment al­so plans to re­claim 40 acres at In­vaders Bay to cre­ate 300 lux­u­ry wa­ter­front apart­ments, a 400-berth ma­ri­na, four five-star ho­tels, a 25,000-seat con­ven­tion cen­tre, and an in­ter­na­tion­al fi­nan­cial tow­er.

Oth­er ini­tia­tives in­clude the re­de­vel­op­ment of the Sea Lots In­dus­tri­al Park and Free Trade Zone, up­grades to the Pub­lic Trans­port Ser­vice Cor­po­ra­tion with a mul­ti-modal in­ter-is­land hub, and ex­pand­ed health fa­cil­i­ties to sup­port med­ical tourism.

Min­is­ter of Plan­ning, Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs, and De­vel­op­ment Kennedy Swarats­ingh an­nounced that the Cab­i­net had ap­proved a Pri­or­i­ty Project Desk to ex­pe­dite ap­proval for projects val­ued above $50 mil­lion with­in 90 days.