Busi­ness cham­bers in Cen­tral Trinidad have con­grat­u­lat­ed busi­ness­man Bal­li­ram Ma­haraj on his ap­point­ment as may­or of Ari­ma.

Speak­ing about the im­pend­ing ap­point­ment yes­ter­day, Cou­va Point Lisas Cham­ber of Com­merce (CPLCC) pres­i­dent Mukesh Ram­s­ingh said, “We are pleased that a mem­ber of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty was ap­point­ed to serve in lo­cal gov­ern­ment. Mr Ma­haraj will bring a wealth of ex­pe­ri­ence to the com­mu­ni­ty and would help to de­vel­op the econ­o­my of the area. We at the cham­ber be­lieve that more busi­ness­peo­ple should get in­volved at the lo­cal gov­ern­ment lev­el.”

He added, “What is good for busi­ness growth and de­vel­op­ment is good for the peo­ple. As busi­ness­es ex­pand, more em­ploy­ment is gen­er­at­ed and bet­ter ser­vices come in­to the com­mu­ni­ties. We al­so con­grat­u­late the in­com­ing Port-of-Spain May­or Mr Chin­ua Al­leyne and all elect­ed can­di­dates in Trinidad.”

Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (CCIC) head Bal­dath Ma­haraj al­so wel­comed the move by the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment to ap­point a well-known busi­ness­man to the po­si­tion.

“We be­lieve that a cit­i­zen with some busi­ness acu­men will cer­tain­ly fill the role of may­or­ship and the re­quire­ments to ful­fil the needs of both the busi­ness­es and the cit­i­zens, since they will have a clear un­der­stand­ing of the needs of both. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, we would like to ex­tend our con­grat­u­la­tions to the oth­er elect­ed can­di­dates of the oth­er bor­oughs and wish you suc­cess in all your en­deav­ours go­ing for­ward. Our cham­ber looks for­ward to work­ing with you for the holis­tic de­vel­op­ment of our na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty.”

The PNM an­nounced that Ma­haraj, CEO of the Ari­ma Dis­count Mart, will be the new may­or of the east­ern bor­ough on Wednes­day. Ma­haraj is al­so the hold­er of a Cha­co­nia Medal, founder of the Su­per­mar­ket As­so­cia­tion of T&T and a for­mer Ari­ma Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion chair­man.

Al­leyne, a busi­ness con­sul­tant and chair­man of the East Port-of-Spain De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Ltd and the Port-of-Spain Shop­ping Com­plex Ltd, was al­so named the new Port-of-Spain May­or.

Robert Par­ris, who has been func­tion­ing as a coun­cil­lor, was al­so cho­sen as the new San Fer­nan­do may­or.