Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Ch­agua­nas May­or Faaiq Mo­hammed says he is sup­port­ive of the Cen­tral bor­ough pos­si­bly at­tain­ing city sta­tus, not­ing that such a ti­tle was fit­ting as the com­mu­ni­ty has grown in terms of size and con­tri­bu­tion to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

In a me­dia state­ment sent to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, in re­sponse to Gov­ern­ment’s pro­pos­al to make Ch­agua­nas a city, Mo­hammed said the town­ship had de­vel­oped from a “cane­field to a city,” not­ing that a change from bor­ough to city was a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone that re­flect­ed the ef­forts, con­tri­bu­tions and achieve­ments of its in­hab­i­tants.

Mo­hammed said Ch­agua­nas has emerged as one of T&T’s pre­mier ur­ban cen­tres. He added that Ch­agua­nas was con­sid­ered for city sta­tus dur­ing the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship-led ad­min­is­tra­tion in 2010, when then Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­scribed it as “the fastest grow­ing bor­ough at that time.”

He said the bor­ough con­tin­ued to ex­pand and de­vel­op, even­tu­al­ly out­grow­ing the tra­di­tion­al con­cept of a bor­ough, as he cit­ed da­ta from a Unit­ed Na­tions Eco­nom­ic Com­mis­sion for Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean (ECLAC) study, which re­port­ed that Ch­agua­nas’ pop­u­la­tion grew from 39,592 in 2000 to 61,494 in 2020, rep­re­sent­ing a growth of 55 per cent.

“These fig­ures tell an im­por­tant sto­ry. Ch­agua­nas is not sim­ply grow­ing in­to a city. In many prac­ti­cal re­spects, it has al­ready de­vel­oped the char­ac­ter­is­tics of a ma­jor ur­ban cen­tre.

“Ch­agua­nas is where peo­ple work, con­duct busi­ness, shop, study, raise fam­i­lies and build their fu­tures. It has be­come a ma­jor com­mer­cial and eco­nom­ic hub for Cen­tral Trinidad and an im­por­tant cen­tre of ac­tiv­i­ty for peo­ple from com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try.”

Mo­hammed said city sta­tus could al­so strength­en the com­mu­ni­ty’s pro­file while at­tract­ing in­vest­ment, en­cour­ag­ing eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty and high­light­ing its place as a cen­tre for ed­u­ca­tion, cul­ture and com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment.