KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

“San Juan/Laven­tille will not be home­less un­der the UNC.”

That was the as­sur­ance from Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen yes­ter­day as she an­nounced that the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion will re­main at MTS Plaza while ne­go­ti­a­tions con­tin­ue on a new lease agree­ment.

Ameen said the state-owned Na­tion­al Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny Ltd (MTS) has agreed to al­low the San Juan/Laven­tille Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (SLRC) to con­tin­ue oc­cu­py­ing its Aranguez Main Road head­quar­ters dur­ing the ne­go­ti­a­tion pe­ri­od, re­mov­ing the im­me­di­ate threat of evic­tion.

Ameen told Guardian Me­dia that while a meet­ing to work out the terms of the new lease is to be sched­uled with all stake­hold­ers in­volved, she be­lieves the pre­ferred op­tion is for the Cor­po­ra­tion to re­main at its cur­rent lo­ca­tion, ar­gu­ing that a re­lo­ca­tion could dis­rupt work­ers and mem­bers of the pub­lic who ac­cess ser­vices there.

Ameen said, “I feel it will be less dis­rup­tive if San Juan Laven­tille Cor­po­ra­tion stays at MTS Plaza be­cause the cit­i­zens are ac­cus­tomed to go­ing there for ser­vices. So we are meet­ing with San Juan Laven­tille and the MTS chair­man and CEOs to work out the lease. So we are in the process of rene­go­ti­at­ing the lease with the view that the best op­tion is for them to stay there. Let me give you the as­sur­ance, San Juan Laven­tille will not be home­less un­der the UNC. We will fix what the PNM ne­glect­ed. So that is­sue with them be­ing evict­ed and so on, we have al­ready dealt with that. The MTS has agreed that they can con­tin­ue to stay while we are in the ne­go­ti­a­tion pe­ri­od. And then there­after, whether the de­ci­sion is for them to stay there or move else­where, they will not be home­less.”

The min­is­ter once again stressed that the is­sue arose be­cause the Cor­po­ra­tion’s lease at MTS Plaza ex­pired in 2021 and was not re­newed un­der the pre­vi­ous PNM-ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Kaz­im Ho­sein was the min­is­ter of lo­cal gov­ern­ment at that time.

Ameen said, “Es­sen­tial­ly, the PNM left San Juan Laven­tille home­less.”

Ameen said when the new ad­min­is­tra­tion took of­fice, the cor­po­ra­tion had re­ceived an evic­tion no­tice be­cause it had re­mained at the build­ing with­out a cur­rent lease.

She said the Gov­ern­ment in­ter­vened and al­so re­viewed al­ter­na­tive build­ings pro­posed by the Cor­po­ra­tion, but be­lieves re­main­ing at MTS Plaza would cre­ate less dis­rup­tion.

The min­is­ter’s com­ments come days af­ter SLRC chair­man Richard Wal­cott said the Cor­po­ra­tion would not va­cate the build­ing de­spite a dead­line re­port­ed­ly is­sued by MTS for it to leave by Ju­ly 31.

Wal­cott had said the Cor­po­ra­tion was un­cer­tain about its fu­ture af­ter plans to re­lo­cate staff to a new build­ing in El So­cor­ro were halt­ed.

Wal­cott pre­vi­ous­ly told Guardian Me­dia that the work­ers are ready to va­cate the Aranguez Plaza it had oc­cu­pied for over 30 years ac­cus­ing MTS of fail­ing to prop­er­ly main­tain the build­ing, cit­ing air-con­di­tion­ing prob­lems, ter­mites and oth­er main­te­nance is­sues.

He al­so com­plained about poor com­mu­ni­ca­tion from both MTS and the Min­istry, say­ing em­ploy­ees did not know whether they would be forced to leave the build­ing.

Ameen said she re­mains in com­mu­ni­ca­tion with Wal­cott and ac­knowl­edged con­cerns raised by work­ers and their union.

She said re­gard­less of whether the fi­nal de­ci­sion is for the Cor­po­ra­tion to re­main at MTS Plaza or move else­where, its ac­com­mo­da­tion would be se­cured.

She added, “Whether the de­ci­sion is for them to stay there or move else­where, they will not be home­less.”

Ef­forts to get a re­sponse from MTS on the lease ne­go­ti­a­tions were un­suc­cess­ful up to press time.