Carisa Lee

For­mer Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture, and the Arts Ran­dall Mitchell has re­ject­ed claims made by Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing Phillip Ed­ward Alexan­der that beach chair rental op­er­a­tors are part of a gang en­ter­prise.

Mitchell said the op­er­a­tors had un­der­gone sev­er­al train­ing ses­sions through the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (UDe­COTT) dur­ing his tenure.

“They are NOT Gang­sters, as ma­li­cious­ly la­belled by Min­is­ter Alexan­der,” Mitchell said.

Alexan­der made the al­le­ga­tions in a video he record­ed at the beach, where he de­scribed the rental op­er­a­tions as “stake­outs” for gang­sters.

“The Trinidad and To­ba­go tourist dol­lars are fund­ing and fi­nanc­ing gangs and this is the cash flow,” Alexan­der claimed.

Mitchell said the Min­istry of Tourism en­gaged UDe­COTT in 2018 to man­age the Mara­cas Beach Fa­cil­i­ty, which in­clud­ed san­i­ta­tion, dredg­ing, se­cu­ri­ty, and over­all main­te­nance. NIPDEC man­aged the car park and wash­rooms.

He said ven­dors were trained in cus­tomer ser­vice and op­er­a­tional stan­dards, in­clud­ing des­ig­nat­ed ar­eas and con­duct, es­pe­cial­ly on cruise ship days.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing com­plaints about ven­dor be­hav­iour, Mitchell said UDe­COTT ad­dressed them.

He said Alexan­der should stop com­plain­ing and get to work.

Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to con­tact Min­is­ter of Tourism Satyaka­ma Ma­haraj, Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary Dr Col­in Neil Go­sine, and UDe­COTT, and are await­ing re­sponse.