Forgotten La Brea

Despite the lucrative industry that surrounds it, La Brea is a good example of the many communities that do not seem to be reaping permanent benefits from their proximity to key national resources.

The recent decision by multinational corporation BP to not proceed with the construction of the Angelin platform has brought renewed attention to the area and to the fact that it has not achieved sustainable development that would free it from the vagaries of the international economic situation.

As pointed out last week in a Business Day report, the community today still lacks basic infrastructure.

Even though the area is industrial, it lacks its own fire station.

Appliances must come from Point Fortin.

Gerald Debiset, the area’s local government councillor, says a lack of water, poor road infrastructure and chronic low levels of employment are problems. A 2016 report found that La Brea’s rate of poverty is six per cent higher than the national average. Its unemployment rate is 7.2 per cent versus the 3.4 per cent of the rest of the country.

Projects like Angelin make a difference in this place.

But the situation is compounded by a lack of trained labour in the area and a lack of educational opportunities. According to Nicole Olivierre, La Brea’s Member of Parliament and former energy minister, there are some serious shortfalls in the community’s education system, starting at the primary level. This entrenches the cycle of poverty.

Additionally, students are not going on to tertiary-level education, which leaves them at a disadvantage in getting jobs once the lower-level construction projects are complete.

Chanarbaye Ramadharsingh, the councillor for Rousillac/ Otaheite, explained that often people had a stereotype about La Brea residents and were unlikely to hire them because of it. Contractors say they will not hire residents because of drug use.

There are also problems relating to land ownership. And on top of all of this, companies in the area have cut down the number of local sub-contractors, choosing instead to bring their own hires into the community. Local contractors in turn have decreased the amount of local labour they would normally hire.

The picture is a dismal one.

The deeper problem is not just the wide disconnect between industry and the local community but the failure of the State, through successive decades, to bolster the standard of living nationally. This includes the failure to address regional inequality. For too long the urban centres of development have concentrated on the same areas.

While some efforts were made to decentralise by placing government offices and even educational campuses outside of traditional centres, these were soon quickly criticised, given lack of confidence in our procurement systems.

More generally, while our gross domestic product per capita once reached US$17,052.26, this has never been a good indicator of the true standard of living enjoyed by citizens. Concentrated bursts of taxation income do not trickle down to the man in the street.

They fund government services of varying quality, provide salaries and goods needed in various departments and also service a range of State ventures and debts.

What is missing is a formula to empower our communities, to allow sustainable development that will consistently build us up, instead of making us rely on the handouts that have their origins in a social system that once treated human beings as commodities.

Until we make serious efforts to diversify and decentralise, towns like La Brea will remain forgotten.