The Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce has crit­i­cised Diego Mar­tin MP Colm Im­bert over com­ments he made in the Low­er House re­gard­ing pro­posed city sta­tus for Ch­agua­nas.

CCIC head Bal­dath Ma­haraj said Im­bert stood in Par­lia­ment and dis­missed Ch­agua­nas be­com­ing a city as “non­sense”.

Ma­haraj said, “He didn’t just at­tack a piece of leg­is­la­tion, he in­sult­ed the work, sweat, and suc­cess of every busi­ness own­er, work­er, and res­i­dent in Cen­tral Trinidad.

“Call­ing the growth of Ch­agua­nas non­sense shows a to­tal dis­con­nect from re­al­i­ty. Look around. Ch­agua­nas is al­ready a city in every way that counts. Long be­fore politi­cians start­ed de­bat­ing ti­tles, our en­tre­pre­neurs built Ch­agua­nas in­to the re­tail pow­er­house in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Ma­haraj said thou­sands of peo­ple come in­to Ch­agua­nas dai­ly to shop, trade, work and do busi­ness.

“We gen­er­ate a mas­sive, dis­pro­por­tion­ate share of the tax rev­enue that keeps this na­tion run­ning. We cre­ate thou­sands of jobs in re­tail, fi­nance, tech and con­struc­tion. Ch­agua­nas is not beg­ging for hand­outs, Ch­agua­nas is car­ry­ing a ma­jor piece of the na­tion­al econ­o­my on its back.”

Ma­haraj said city sta­tus is not a prize to be grant­ed by Par­lia­ment or a po­lit­i­cal pawn to be tossed around in de­bate.

He said, “It is a for­mal recog­ni­tion of what the peo­ple of Cen­tral have al­ready built. Up­grad­ing Ch­agua­nas to a city means se­cur­ing the prop­er fund­ing, se­cu­ri­ty and mu­nic­i­pal re­sources our peo­ple pay for and right­ful­ly de­serve.

“To dis­count our ad­vance­ment as non­sense dis­re­gards the core en­gine of Trinidad’s com­merce. The Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce stands shoul­der to shoul­der with every res­i­dent and busi­ness own­er in our bor­ough. We do not care about par­ty lines or po­lit­i­cal games, we care about progress.

“I in­vite any leader who doubts our worth to step out of Par­lia­ment, walk the streets of Ch­agua­nas, look at our bustling econ­o­my, and tell the peo­ple here that their con­tri­bu­tion is non­sense.

“It is time for na­tion­al lead­ers to stop down­play­ing our val­ue and start ral­ly­ing be­hind the re­gion that keeps Trinidad mov­ing for­ward. Ch­agua­nas has earned its sta­tus. The time for city sta­tus is now.”