Govt plans manufacturing estate in Central

PLANS are afoot to construct a light manufacturing estate in Central Trinidad on lands formerly controlled by the now defunct Caroni (1975) Ltd. This was revealed by Chaguanas Mayor Suruj Rambachan, when he spoke at a Greater Chaguanas Chamber of Industry and Commerce luncheon at Kampo Restaurant in Chaguanas yesterday. Rambachan said he was pleased to learn that Government and the Chamber are discussing plans to establish such an estate on 1,000 acres of land formerly owned by Caroni.

St Augustine MP Winston Dookeran expressed support for the proposed estate, stressing the need to expand economic space in Central Trinidad in the wake of Caroni’s closure in 2003. Dookeran advised Government against using mass excesses of money flowing into the economy to dictate its fiscal  policy. Rambachan, however, expressed concern that people “continue to join the poverty line” in Trinidad and Tobago. The Mayor wondered if “we are heading for a social convulsion” and wondered whether unemployment levels would skyrocket if Government failed to find funding for the various contractors it had created under the CEPEP programme.