Raphael John-Lall

Af­ter more than a decade of wait­ing, the Debe cam­pus of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) is set to open lat­er this year, with the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty in south is ex­pect­ing it to boost eco­nom­ic and busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ty in the area.

While no spe­cif­ic date has been giv­en for its open­ing as yet, Min­is­ter of Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion and Skills Train­ing Dr Prakash Per­sad has said that the Gov­ern­ment is deal­ing with is­sues and it will try to com­plete all work on the cam­pus by Sep­tem­ber.

Two weeks ago, UWI Cam­pus prin­ci­pal Pro­fes­sor Rose­marie Belle An­toine toured the site and looked at the struc­tur­al prob­lems that need to be fixed be­fore it is ready for stu­dent use.

The Debe cam­pus, a mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar project span­ning ap­prox­i­mate­ly 100 acres, was orig­i­nal­ly de­signed to ex­pand ac­cess to ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion in cen­tral and south Trinidad. It fea­tures aca­d­e­m­ic build­ings, ad­min­is­tra­tive of­fices, stu­dent fa­cil­i­ties, and a law fac­ul­ty com­plex with a moot court.

How­ev­er, af­ter the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion led by then prime min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar demit­ted of­fice in 2015, the cam­pus re­mained large­ly un­used un­der the suc­ceed­ing gov­ern­ment amid con­cerns over struc­tur­al is­sues, in­com­plete works and main­te­nance costs. It was lat­er utilised dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and fell in­to a state of dis­re­pair.

For­mer pres­i­dent of the Pe­nal/Debe Cham­ber of Com­merce, Ram­per­sad Sieu­raj, who is an ac­coun­tant by pro­fes­sion, told the Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian that af­ter a decade of wait­ing, and a part of Trinidad rav­aged by the coun­try’s eco­nom­ic con­trac­tion over the last few years, he is hope­ful that it will give the area the boost it needs.

“It will give the Pe­nal and Debe com­mu­ni­ty that sort of eco­nom­ic vi­bran­cy that was prob­a­bly lack­ing. It will al­so give the area a more busi­ness-like, a more uni­ver­si­ty-type, a more ed­u­ca­tion­al sort of pro­file. The cam­pus it­self is lo­cat­ed lit­er­al­ly as a hub to the en­vi­rons of Pe­nal/Debe, San Fer­nan­do, Princess Town, and these ar­eas,” he said.

Sieu­raj de­scribed the eco­nom­ic abyss the area has fall­en in­to es­pe­cial­ly af­ter the Petrotrin re­fin­ery was closed down, which led to with busi­ness clo­sures, ris­ing un­em­ploy­ment and ex­plod­ing crime.

“I have seen that the mem­ber­ship has de­creased as a re­sult of busi­ness clo­sures. I’m not talk­ing about ces­sa­tion, I’m talk­ing about ac­tu­al clo­sures at the reg­is­ter of com­pa­nies. We have prob­a­bly seen a 25 to 30 per­cent de­cline in busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ty in the Pe­nal/Debe area since 2018.”

He lament­ed that the clo­sure of Petrotrin was a dev­as­tat­ing blow that con­tin­ues to hurt com­mu­ni­ties in south up to this day and there has been noth­ing to fill the void.

“So, there­fore, the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty in Pe­nal/Debe has been at a tremen­dous set­back as a re­sult of the clo­sure of Petrotrin. And then even with­in re­cent times, with the lay­ing off of so many work­ers, and no oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ties, where do we go?”

In 2025, Guardian Me­dia re­port­ed that chair­man of the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (PDRC) Gow­tam Ma­haraj com­plained that no road­works were car­ried out over the pre­vi­ous year, blam­ing fund­ing poli­cies un­der the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion and added that they were “cash-strapped.”

Sieu­raj re­in­forced this by say­ing that de­spite its size, suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments have not al­lo­cat­ed the kind of re­sources need­ed for the area.

“Deep South has been the en­gine room of Trinidad and To­ba­go for the past 100 years. What have we got to show for it? To­ba­go en­joys a bud­get of $3 and $4 bil­lion an­nu­al­ly. You know what Pe­nal/Debe gets in this bud­get an­nu­al­ly? $50 mil­lion. How could one jus­ti­fy that the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion is in re­ceipt of $50 and $60 mil­lion a year for 100,000 peo­ple based on the 2011 cen­sus?”

Eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ties

On the back­drop of these chal­lenges that the com­mu­ni­ty faces, Sieu­raj spoke about new busi­ness op­por­tu­ni­ties that the Debe cam­pus will hope­ful­ly bring.

“The Pe­nal/Debe area, for ex­am­ple, is fa­mous for its dou­bles and so on, which is just a stone’s throw away from where the cam­pus is. It al­lows for this kind of greater eco­nom­ic hub with the in­flux of stu­dents, the in­flux of par­ents, the op­por­tu­ni­ty for par­ents to come and meet and greet on week­ends, when­ev­er they’re com­ing to drop off or col­lect their kids.”

He is al­so hope­ful that south will at­tract more tourists whether lo­cal or for­eign­er.

“We may have for­eign stu­dents, we may have the im­pact of for­eign vis­i­tors and eco-tourism and that sort of thing in the area. It al­lows peo­ple to come to Pe­nal/Debe, have break­fast, go down to the Ban­wari site and vis­it there, come down and vis­it the mud vol­cano. There are these op­por­tu­ni­ties for for­eign stu­dents to come to Pe­nal/Debe. It is just 15 min­utes to dri­ve down to Point Fortin and the Pitch Lake.”

He al­so fore­sees the area’s rental mar­ket grow­ing with stu­dents from out­side the area look­ing for places to rent.

“Take for ex­am­ple the sit­u­a­tion that ex­ists at UWI in St. Au­gus­tine, where every home lit­er­al­ly is now ei­ther com­mer­cialised or rent­ed prop­er­ty. It al­lows for that op­por­tu­ni­ty for the in­hab­i­tants of the Pe­nal/Debe area to max­imise the ben­e­fits to be de­rived from hav­ing a uni­ver­si­ty cam­pus in our back­yard. It al­lows for greater eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty in terms of hous­ing, in terms of rental in­come, in terms of small busi­ness­es.”

Sieu­raj re­ferred to a new cin­e­ma that was opened last month in the Debe area and used this as an ex­am­ple of the type of com­mer­cial ac­tiv­i­ty that would ex­pand with more peo­ple at­tract­ed to the area when the cam­pus is opened.

“Maybe some en­tre­pre­neur might de­cide, let us see if we can cre­ate some­thing that we see in the mod­ern world, where every­body can come and mix and feel as a fam­i­ly, sit down and have some­thing to eat, go shop­ping, go to cin­e­ma, these sort of things.”

He called on the Gov­ern­ment to im­prove the ease of do­ing busi­ness to help the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty grow.

“Now these busi­ness­es have been forced to close with the bu­reau­crat­ic myth of ease of do­ing busi­ness in T&T, to open a bank ac­count, to get a VAT num­ber, to get a file num­ber, to get a Na­tion­al In­sur­ance (NIB) num­ber. The prob­lem that small busi­ness­es in Pe­nal/Debe have to en­counter is as­tro­nom­i­cal. And it’s im­pos­si­ble for a hair­dress­er, for ex­am­ple, or a stu­dent who now comes out of UWI and can­not get a job and who wants to open a par­lour or some­thing. It’s im­pos­si­ble to do this giv­en the cost as­so­ci­at­ed with small busi­ness­es in Pe­nal Debe.”

Fi­nal­ly, he re­mains op­ti­mistic that the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty in this area will thrive when the cam­pus is of­fi­cial­ly opened.

“Pe­nal/Debe is a vi­brant busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty in spite of all the draw­backs and the set­backs we have. The area was lit­er­al­ly cane fields and la­goon. Look at it to­day. You can­not get any re­al es­tate in the whole Pe­nal/Debe strip. It is now prime re­al es­tate prop­er­ty. That is be­cause of the spir­it of the peo­ple, their abil­i­ty to sur­vive. It’s no boast­ful men­tion that we would have risen from the la­goons and the cane fields to what we are to­day.”

New chap­ter

Pres­i­dent of the Siparia Busi­ness Cham­ber Emer­son Ched­die said that the clo­sure of Petrotrin was a sig­nif­i­cant blow to the econ­o­my and busi­ness­es across south Trinidad, leav­ing many fam­i­lies and en­ter­pris­es fac­ing hard­ship. How­ev­er, he said the open­ing of the Debe UWI Cam­pus rep­re­sents a “new chap­ter of op­por­tu­ni­ty” for that part of the coun­try.

“It will at­tract stu­dents, fac­ul­ty, and sup­port ser­vices, cre­at­ing new de­mand for hous­ing, re­tail, trans­porta­tion, and pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices. More im­por­tant­ly, it will serve as a hub for ed­u­ca­tion, in­no­va­tion, and skills de­vel­op­ment—equip­ping young peo­ple with the tools to dri­ve di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion be­yond the en­er­gy sec­tor.”

He said while they can­not erase the “hurt” caused by Petrotrin’s clo­sure, the Debe UWI Cam­pus pro­vides a foun­da­tion for re­new­al, help­ing to re­store con­fi­dence, stim­u­late in­vest­ment, and chart a more re­silient fu­ture for sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties.

“For busi­ness­es in south Trinidad, this means fresh mar­kets, in­creased ac­tiv­i­ty, and ac­cess to a pipeline of tal­ent that can strength­en en­tre­pre­neur­ship and em­ploy­ment. While Petrotrin’s clo­sure was a set­back, the Debe Cam­pus pro­vides a foun­da­tion for re­new­al, help­ing re­store con­fi­dence, stim­u­late in­vest­ment, and chart a more re­silient fu­ture for our re­gion.”