Manning: Health, housing on track

PRIME MINISTER Patrick Manning shares Health Minister John Rahael’s optimism about the health sector returning to normal. Addressing Thursday’s post-Cabinet news conference at Whitehall, the Prime Minister said: “The Minister of Health met at length with the representatives of workers at various levels on Monday evening and the problems that they articulated are being addressed by the Ministry of Health even now. They are not resolved  but we are well on the way to resolving them.”

Speaking with reporters at the launch of the National HIV/AIDS Strategic Plan at the Hilton Trinidad on Monday, Rahael said he advised the North West Regional Health Authority (NWRHA) against making promises to workers which they could not keep and he was optimistic that there would be no disruption of service in the health sector. Protest action at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, Mt Hope, ended on Wednesday after 75 letters of permanent appointment were distributed by the NWRHA, in keeping with an agreement with the Public Services Association. NWRHA communications officer Charmaine Codrington said the process was continuing and “workers were back on the job.”

Works and Transport Minister Franklyn Khan said the Health Sector Reform Programme was one of several Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)-funded programmes which the former UNC government had lapsed on. “Today we have put it on the front burner of our administration and all the IDB projects have now come on an even keel,” Khan declared. The Prime Minister said Government has not reversed its decision to build 100,000 houses over the next ten years and dismissed reports which alleged that Housing Minister Dr Keith Rowley indicated such. “Dr Rowley did not say that and I would like you not to read the headline but just to read the article and you will see what he said. He did not say that,” Manning stated.

Following a breakfast meeting in Westmoorings, the banking sector gave its commitment to assist in financing Government’s housing thrust. The Prime Minister said once Atlantic LNG’s (ALNG) Train Four comes online, the yield from all four LNG trains will provide the critical mass of ethane necessary to operate an ethlyene cracker and ethylene was the forerunner to plastics. Manning said the ethylene cracker will be located at the Union Industrial Estate in La Brea and Government believes that iron and steel, aluminium and plastics were the pillars of a modern industrial nation.