An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers
@guardian.co.tt

ANSA McAL Ex­ec­u­tive Chair­man A Nor­man Sab­ga is ex­press­ing en­thu­si­asm over the Trinidad and To­ba­go Re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion Blue­print, de­scrib­ing the scale of the plan as “very ex­cit­ing.”

The ma­jor plan was un­veiled by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Gov­ern­ment on Thurs­day at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, St Ann’s.

Speak­ing yes­ter­day at the re­lease of the Group’s fi­nan­cial re­sults for the nine-month pe­ri­od end­ed Sep­tem­ber 30, at Samaan Es­tate, St Clair, Sab­ga said, “It’s huge. It’s ex­cit­ing. Where they want to take this coun­try re­quires dream­ing big.”

“We need to dream big, man­age the de­tails, and move the coun­try for­ward. That’s what we are do­ing as an or­gan­i­sa­tion, plan­ning and in­vest­ing with the fu­ture in mind,” he added.

Oth­er busi­ness lead­ers, from Port-of-Spain to San Fer­nan­do, al­so ex­pressed op­ti­mism about the plan while urg­ing the Gov­ern­ment to fix fun­da­men­tal is­sues such as trans­porta­tion, drainage, and ease of do­ing busi­ness.

Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion (DO­MA) pres­i­dent Gre­go­ry Aboud said the pre­sen­ta­tion re­flect­ed gen­uine en­thu­si­asm from both the Prime Min­is­ter and Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jear­lean John, de­scrib­ing that en­er­gy as “the kind that dri­ves progress.”

“We are grate­ful for the en­thu­si­asm of the Gov­ern­ment and the de­ter­mi­na­tion that was ex­hib­it­ed,” Aboud said. “Min­is­ter John came across as en­er­getic and com­mit­ted, and that con­vic­tion is what dri­ves progress. The plans for the Port-of-Spain and San Fer­nan­do wa­ter­fronts and a re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion-fo­cused prison mod­el are ad­mirable and am­bi­tious.”

But Aboud cau­tioned that the coun­try’s ba­sic in­fra­struc­ture must be ad­dressed be­fore ma­jor re­de­vel­op­ment can take hold.

“We can’t en­vis­age mas­sive de­vel­op­ment in Port-of-Spain while sur­face flood­ing per­sists af­ter heavy rain­fall,” he said. “Trans­porta­tion, drainage, and a sim­ple, cost-ef­fec­tive rail sys­tem must be part of any se­ri­ous trans­for­ma­tion.”

He added that while the lo­cal pri­vate sec­tor lacks the deep cap­i­tal re­serves need­ed to fi­nance such wide-rang­ing projects, it sup­ports the Gov­ern­ment’s in­ten­tion to at­tract for­eign in­vest­ment. “It’s a steep moun­tain to climb, but chal­lenges like this can be met if we work to­geth­er and main­tain the en­thu­si­asm shown at the launch on Thurs­day.”

At the launch, Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar un­veiled what she called a once-in-a-gen­er­a­tion blue­print, promis­ing 50,919 jobs and more than 100 in­fra­struc­ture projects across the coun­try.

The Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Am­ChamTT) was al­so sup­port­ive, call­ing the ini­tia­tive a “re­fresh­ing and much-need­ed na­tion­al vi­sion.”

Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer Ni­rad Tewarie said it of­fers a chance to unite the coun­try around shared eco­nom­ic goals. “It is re­fresh­ing to see the Gov­ern­ment lay out a big vi­sion, some­thing the en­tire coun­try can buy in­to,” he said.

Tewarie said Am­ChamTT wel­comed the push to at­tract for­eign in­vestors and not­ed signs of im­prove­ment in trade fa­cil­i­ta­tion, such as Cus­toms’ new em­pha­sis on elec­tron­ic pay­ments and process re­form. “The biggest threat to suc­cess will be cor­rup­tion,” he said. “We are en­cour­aged that the Prime Min­is­ter iden­ti­fied this risk and made it clear that wrong­do­ing will not be tol­er­at­ed. Cor­rup­tion makes it much hard­er to do busi­ness and achieve val­ue for mon­ey.”

The Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of Com­merce en­dorsed the blue­print as well, say­ing it marks a shift “from talk to tan­gi­ble ac­tion.” The Cham­ber said di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion has long been dis­cussed but rarely act­ed up­on. “This plan sig­nals re­al in­tent to fu­ture-proof our econ­o­my,” it said in a state­ment.

It added that equal ac­cess to busi­ness op­por­tu­ni­ties, es­pe­cial­ly for small and medi­um-sized en­ter­pris­es, must re­main cen­tral to im­ple­men­ta­tion, call­ing for full trans­paren­cy in the new Ude­cott elec­tron­ic ten­der por­tal. “Am­bi­tion of this scale can re­store con­fi­dence, at­tract in­vest­ment, and give young peo­ple a rea­son to be­lieve in a brighter fu­ture,” the Cham­ber said.

The San Fer­nan­do Greater Cham­ber of Com­merce (SFGCC) said the south­ern busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty was “ex­cit­ed” about re­de­vel­op­ment plans for the San Fer­nan­do wa­ter­front, de­scrib­ing them as cru­cial for com­mer­cial and tourism ex­pan­sion. Pres­i­dent Ki­ran Singh said the pro­posed ma­ri­na, am­phithe­atre, and mixed-use wa­ter­front could trans­form the city in­to a hub for leisure, cul­ture, and health tourism.

“The in­clu­sion of ho­tels, con­fer­ence cen­tres, and a healthy city re­flects a for­ward-think­ing vi­sion,” Singh said.

He al­so backed plans to con­sol­i­date prison fa­cil­i­ties and con­vert Car­rera Is­land in­to a re­sort, say­ing such adap­tive reuse projects could gen­er­ate rev­enue and strength­en na­tion­al brand­ing. “It’s a good idea, work­able and fea­si­ble,” he said. “We just need prop­er ex­e­cu­tion and in­vestor con­fi­dence to fol­low.”

The Works Min­is­ter said ex­pres­sions of in­ter­est were in­vit­ed on Thurs­day and would re­main open un­til mid-Jan­u­ary, with re­quests for pro­pos­als (RF­Ps) to be eval­u­at­ed by April. Some projects are ex­pect­ed to break ground as ear­ly as Au­gust 2026.

Yes­ter­day, Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the Point Fortin Room at the Hy­att Ho­tel, where a booth was set up for busi­ness­es to reg­is­ter.

A rep­re­sen­ta­tive said that the first day, which be­gan at 10 am and end­ed in the af­ter­noon, was slow but had steady in­ter­est.