Moruga very important for diversifying economy

On Wednesday, both ministers were part of a meeting with stakeholders at the St Mary’s Government Primary School where Minister Gopee-Scoon rolled out an ambitious Government plant to construct an agro processing plant and light industrial park in Moruga as a means of diversifying away from the oil and gas sector and also providing meaning and long-lasting employment to people living in Moruga and environs who in turn can give back to society by way of goods and service coming out of the plant and light industrial park.

The agro processing plant and light industrial park will be constructed on 18.83 acres if land at Saunders Trace. For his part, Minister Rambharat said, “Moruga is a very important place as it relates to agriculture and fisheries. What we are about to do here is very critical to national development.” Outlining his ministry’s projects, Rambharat shared that, “we have earmarked on the nursery projects that will continue to support the development of planting material for both food production and forestry. And so far, we have available for planting in this upcoming wet season over 1.2 million plants, which is a combination of forestry plants and food producing plants.

“Based on what we have done so far, we are confident that over the next few years, we can sustain the production of planting material above 1 million plants per year. And that will make a substantial contribution to regenerated forestry, forest reserves across the country, replanting parts of the Northern Range, reintroducing some fruit and plant that have disappeared and also reintroducing forest in some of the recreation areas across the country.” The Port, he added, remains a priority project. One of the main reasons is to attract the long liners. In the surrounding areas, such as Tableland, we continue to improve the road infrastructure.

This year, we move into Phase II of a project which aims to develop the road as we seek to continue supporting the pineapple farmers,” Rambharat said at the meeting.

Rambharat said there is a lot of hope and expectation placed on farmers, food producers and his Ministry.

“And at the heart of what we have to do for farmers is resolving the issue of land tenure as it relates to them.

For far too long, the administration of land has relied on paper files.

“This year, we are investing $11.9 million on one hand to improve the IT infrastructure in the Ministry to build the backbone to allow for reliable access at the necessary offices and to have connectivity; and (on the other hand) to move away from a paper based way of doing business to a modern document electronic management system.

The IT investment ranks as amongst the most important investment we will make in this fiscal year.” The agro processing and light industrial park will initially house five factory shells and represents an investment of approximately $69.3 million towards the further development of Moruga.

Gopee-Scoon noted that these initiatives are expected to facilitate economic growth and the development of environmentally sustainable local, regional and international businesses, engaged in downstream activities in the agricultural sector; (while facilitating) the further development of the community and the creation of world class entrepreneurs.

Addressing the audience were Rural Develpment and Local Government Minister Kazim Hosein, Frank Barnes, CEO of Udecott and Imtiaz Ahamad, Chairman of eTecK who all outlined their various plans for the area. In the audience were Winston Rudder, Chairman of the Cocoa Development Company of Trinidad and Tobago; Maureen Singh, Ag eTecK president; Alderman Natalia Mendez of the Princes Town Regional Corporation; Mitchell Fitzroy, Chairman of the Moruga/Tableland Constituency; Feroze Khan, Principal of the St Mary’s Government Primary School and Dhano Sookoo, Presiden of the Agriculture Society of Trinidad and Tobago.