RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Ju­nior Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Bri­an Man­ning has de­nied that Trinidad and To­ba­go is the "laugh­ing stock" of the Caribbean for im­port­ing fu­el from Ja­maica. 

Speak­ing to re­porters be­fore the open­ing of City Heights Hous­ing Com­plex in Co­coyea, San Fer­nan­do, on Fri­day, Man­ning said the coun­try has been im­port­ing fu­el for some time and is sourc­ing it at the best prices.

“What we have been do­ing is sourc­ing fu­el wher­ev­er we get the best prices be­cause we are a con­sol­ida­tor and im­porter of fu­el. We have been do­ing this since the clo­sure of Petrotrin,”

Man­ning said . “Her­itage and Paria have been prof­itable every year they have been in ex­is­tence, and it is a far bet­ter sit­u­a­tion than the pre­vi­ous sys­tem, where we were los­ing hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars. So, it is all in the best in­ter­est of the peo­ple. The com­pa­nies that have been im­port­ing fu­el have been prof­itable, and that ben­e­fits every­one in­volved.”

On whether the new hous­ing units con­sti­tut­ed “house padding,” or "vot­er padding" Man­ning laughed. He said the de­mand for hous­ing re­mains high. “Any MP in any con­stituen­cy will know the huge de­mand for hous­ing, and it would be ex­treme­ly dif­fi­cult to fill that gap in a short pe­ri­od. This project goes a long way in help­ing the peo­ple of this com­mu­ni­ty who have been clam­our­ing for hous­ing. He said San Fer­nan­do East is a PNM strong­hold so putting more hous­es in a PNM con­stituen­cy would on­ly bring ben­e­fit to the con­stituents. 

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley is ex­pect­ed to be the fea­ture speak­er at the City Heights open­ing.