Rad­hi­ca De Sil­va

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley says a ma­jor $1.6 bil­lion trans­for­ma­tion is com­ing for San Fer­nan­do which will make the city “un­recog­nis­able” in the next four to five years.

Speak­ing at the open­ing of the up­grad­ed $131 mil­lion Skin­ner Park in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day, Row­ley ex­pressed joy that the fa­cil­i­ty was fi­nal­ly open just in time for Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta, which will take place this week­end.

The Park was closed for re­pairs in 2019 and faced mul­ti­ple con­struc­tion set­backs caused by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

How­ev­er, Dr Row­ley said now that Skin­ner Park is re­opened, more projects are on stream for the city to the tune of $ 1.6 bil­lion.

Ex­plain­ing why the city was be­ing giv­en this hefty fi­nan­cial in­jec­tion, Row­ley said since the re­struc­tur­ing of Petrotrin there had been a huge eco­nom­ic fall­out.

“Grant­i­ng San Fer­nan­do that ex­pen­di­ture was not ac­ci­den­tal. It was be­cause we recog­nised that the re­struc­tur­ing of Petrotrin would have had a neg­a­tive ef­fect on San Fer­nan­do and the wider com­mu­ni­ty. We had to do some­thing in the San Fer­nan­do dis­trict so that those who were neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ed had some kind of re­lief,” he said.

The Prime Min­is­ter added: “I dare tell you that I look for­ward to the next four to five years in San Fer­nan­do, where you will not recog­nise the city as it grows as one of the fastest in this coun­try.”

Dr Row­ley said there were nev­er enough re­sources to do every­thing at once.

“De­ci­sions to spend pub­lic mon­ey like this comes af­ter dis­cus­sions,” he said.

“We have been say­ing to this coun­try that we will try to do more with less,” he added.

The PM said T&T was “on a con­tin­u­ous jour­ney of de­vel­op­ment and every project was pri­ori­tised.”

He told the stu­dents gath­ered for the func­tion to use their youth to work hard and be pro­duc­tive in build­ing their coun­try.

“This in­vest­ment is for you. This coun­try has been good to us. Let no­body tell you that this coun­try is not the best place in the world.

“There are oth­er na­tions with more mon­ey and big­ger armies and air force but you are still a sec­ond-class cit­i­zen there. But in Trinidad you are first class,” he added.

De­spite the high crime rate, Dr Row­ley slammed those who ad­vo­cat­ed that “Trinidad was not a re­al place.”

“While there are a lot of things to be crit­i­cal about, you must ac­cept crit­i­cism and be crit­i­cal where crit­i­cism is re­quired. But let us not do it in a way to give the im­pres­sion that all fall down,” he warned.

He added: “And then you have a few id­iots who talk­ing about whether Trinidad is a re­al place. Every time I read that, I wish they end up in Ukraine. You have a coun­try like T&T, where diplo­mats will tell you that be­ing placed in T&T as a mis­sion of­fi­cer is one of the best post­ings in the world, notwith­stand­ing the non­sense that is go­ing on where every­body is try­ing to kill every­body else.

“We do have a small mi­nor­i­ty that has armed them­selves and have made them­selves na­tion­al nui­sances large­ly sup­port­ed and de­fend­ed by their fam­i­lies,” Dr Row­ley said.

Mean­while, San Fer­nan­do West MP Faris Al-Rawi said 11 projects are un­der­way in the city and this was be­cause of Dr Row­ley’s vi­sion.

“The Prime Min­is­ter stood by the Dare to Dream vi­sion. This site is one of 11 en­ter­pris­es of the Ude­cott project for San Fer­nan­do re­de­vel­op­ment. Those projects to­tal $1.599 bil­lion of in­vest­ment in San Fer­nan­do. That rep­re­sents em­ploy­ment, liveli­hood, beau­ti­fi­ca­tion,” Al-Rawi said.

He said the widened wa­ter­front, the Ram­saran walkover, the re­open­ing of Hat­ters Pa­n­yard, the cleared Min­istry of Works site, the high-rise build­ings and Plaza San Car­los were part of the project.

He ex­plained that it took six years to get en­vi­ron­men­tal clear­ance from the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty to con­duct the widen­ing of the road along La­dy Hailes from wharf, but this is now go­ing to move full speed ahead.

The new­ly ren­o­vat­ed Skin­ner Park will be able to ac­com­mo­date 6,000 pa­trons, with 3,000 in the main stand and 1,500 in two bleach­ers.

The ameni­ties in the main bleach­er in­clude con­ces­sion stands, fa­cil­i­ties for home and away teams, meet­ing and con­fer­ence rooms, and VIP box­es.

The cy­cling track has been re­built and the foot­ball field was re­ori­ent­ed to a North-South po­si­tion which meets the min­i­mum FI­FA stan­dards.