JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Saturday, May 31, 2025

London gives Sandals project his blessing

by

20161001

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Orville Lon­don says many peo­ple on the is­land are in sup­port of the es­tab­lish­ment of a San­dals ho­tel.

He made the com­ment dur­ing an in­ter­view fol­low­ing yes­ter­day's pre­sen­ta­tion of the $53 bil­lion 2017 Na­tion­al Bud­get in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert, who seemed to give the project his bless­ing dur­ing his speech.

"The San­dals project does send a very pow­er­ful sig­nal about where we want to go with the To­ba­go econ­o­my," Lon­don said.

Im­bert had told leg­is­la­tors ear­li­er that the Gov­ern­ment was com­mit­ted to the pro­posed es­tab­lish­ment of the San­dals Re­sort in To­ba­go, not­ing it would be a cat­a­lyst "for de­vel­op­ment and en­hance­ment of the tourism in­dus­try in To­ba­go and Trinidad."

He said the Gov­ern­ment was "cer­tain that a San­dals re­sort will at­tract oth­er tourism in­vest­ments in To­ba­go" and the re­sort "will pre­cip­i­tate the up­skilling of the work­force, boost agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion and de­liv­er bet­ter and more ef­fec­tive mar­ket­ing of To­ba­go, as well as Trinidad as pre­ferred tourism des­ti­na­tions."

He said the San­dals Re­sort had the po­ten­tial to pro­vide sig­nif­i­cant eco­nom­ic im­pact and nu­mer­ous ben­e­fits for res­i­dents of To­ba­go and Trinidad.

Lon­don point­ed out that tourism is go­ing to play a very crit­i­cal role in the de­vel­op­ment of the is­land "from the per­spec­tive of get­ting the (de­sired) for­eign ex­change, pro­vid­ing em­ploy­ment and en­sur­ing that To­ba­go and the coun­try re­mains vi­able."

Lon­don said, "This project is very crit­i­cal to To­ba­go's de­vel­op­ment (and) it is go­ing to be a cat­a­lyst for more de­vel­op­ment in the tourism sec­tor and im­prove­ment in the lev­el of ac­tiv­i­ty in many oth­er sec­tors on the is­land.

"The THA and most of the ma­jor sec­tors in To­ba­go were high­ly sup­port­ive of the San­dals ven­ture," Lon­don said.

He said de­spite the cur­rent eco­nom­ic chal­lenges, fis­cal 2017 can be very ex­cit­ing and pro­duc­tive for To­ba­go be­cause of the San­dals and oth­er projects.

Sec­re­tary for Fi­nance Joel Jack, who viewed Im­bert's speech with Lon­don, echoed the Chief Sec­re­tary's sen­ti­ments, in­sist­ing that the bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion was ex­cel­lent. He said the "pre­scrip­tions out­lined in the pre­sen­ta­tion will au­gur well for not on­ly To­ba­go, but for all of Trinidad too."

The THA was al­lo­cat­ed $2.3 bil­lion in the bud­get. Im­bert said just over $2 bil­lion will be for re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture, $289 mil­lion for cap­i­tal ex­pen­di­ture and $20 mil­lion for the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme.

He said in ad­di­tion to that al­lo­ca­tion, "sig­nif­i­cant ad­di­tion­al funds have been al­lo­cat­ed to fa­cil­i­tate work in To­ba­go by gov­ern­ment min­istries un­der the THA Act."

Im­bert said, "The ad­di­tion­al bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion will as­sist in ad­dress­ing the chron­ic wa­ter cri­sis in south­west To­ba­go."


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored