Res­i­dents of San­gre Grande shared their bud­get wish­list with mem­bers of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress on Fri­day, with crime, agri­cul­ture and in­fra­struc­ture fea­tur­ing promi­nent­ly among the is­sues res­i­dents high­light­ed.

The Pre-Bud­get Con­sul­ta­tion was held at the Du­ran­ta Gar­dens Com­mu­ni­ty.

Ac­cord­ing to the UNC, res­i­dents spoke of is­sues such as:

-  the ab­sence of sport­ing fa­cil­i­ties and its re­la­tion to crime

-  the im­por­tance of in­cor­po­rat­ing re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions in­to gov­ern­ment’s so­cial pro­grammes

-  the need for ac­tiv­i­ty cen­tres for youths, job op­por­tu­ni­ties, and more ed­u­ca­tion­al and train­ing in­sti­tu­tions in the area, par­tic­u­lar­ly at the ter­tiary lev­el, in­clud­ing the re­open­ing of the re­gion­al COSTATT cam­pus

-  mak­ing ac­cess to so­cial ser­vices eas­i­er, with­out the red tape and un­nec­es­sary dif­fi­cul­ties and ob­sta­cles

-  the need for a fish­ing de­pot, restor­ing ice-mak­ing fa­cil­i­ties in To­co, bring­ing back the Seafood In­dus­tri­al De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny

-  agri­cul­tur­al sup­port, es­pe­cial­ly with re­gard to the price of chem­i­cals and fer­til­iz­er

-  deal­ing more ef­fec­tive­ly with prae­di­al lar­ce­ny, al­low­ing farm­ers eas­i­er ac­cess to li­censed firearms to pro­tect them­selves

-  the need for drought mit­i­ga­tion mea­sures

-  tax­es go­ing out of San­gre Grande in­stead of de­vel­op­ing the East­ern seaboard, un­der­tak­ing tourism projects in Nar­i­va Swamp, and de­vel­op­ing a parkade and more wel­com­ing fa­cil­i­ties in San­gre Grande

-  the need for em­ploy­ment in the area

-  the di­lap­i­da­tion of the Court, and bring­ing back the death penal­ty to curb crime and al­low peo­ple to live their lives, run busi­ness­es, and en­joy their prop­er­ty in peace

-  de­vel­op­ing prop­er in­fra­struc­ture along the north coast for agri­cul­tur­al­ists, fish­er­folk, and tourism

-  sup­port for sin­gle par­ents