Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Min­is­ter of the Peo­ple, So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices, Van­dana Mo­hit, says the fu­ture of the un­der-con­struc­tion As­sess­ment Cen­tre and Tem­po­rary Hous­ing Fa­cil­i­ty for the So­cial­ly Dis­placed on South Quay, Port of Spain, is un­der re­view, as she re­spond­ed to Op­po­si­tion Leader Pene­lope Beck­les’ de­mands for an up­date on the project.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Mo­hit said the new ad­min­is­tra­tion was re­assess­ing the project to en­sure it aligns with the Gov­ern­ment’s pri­or­i­ties.

“It is com­mon knowl­edge that when ad­min­is­tra­tion changes, its pri­or­i­ty projects change in align­ment with the vi­sion of the new gov­ern­ment. As such, that as­sess­ment cen­tre is be­ing re­viewed with an all-of-gov­ern­ment ap­proach where max­i­mum ben­e­fits can be de­rived from this fa­cil­i­ty.

“At this mo­ment, the plans and poli­cies for that cen­tre re­main at a dis­cus­sion stage with­in the Cab­i­net. In due course, the pub­lic will be du­ly ap­prised,” Mo­hit said.

Her com­ments came af­ter Beck­les ques­tioned the sta­tus of the project dur­ing a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing on Thurs­day, ac­cus­ing the Gov­ern­ment of fail­ing to ex­plain why con­struc­tion had been halt­ed.

Beck­les said the is­sue was of na­tion­al im­por­tance be­cause of the grow­ing con­cerns sur­round­ing home­less­ness and vul­ner­a­ble cit­i­zens, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Port-of-Spain.

She not­ed that the fa­cil­i­ty was ap­prox­i­mate­ly 50 per cent com­plete when the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment left of­fice and claimed that rough­ly $16 mil­lion had al­ready been spent on its con­struc­tion.

Beck­les al­so point­ed to the ab­sence of fund­ing for the project in the 2026 Bud­get, say­ing the Gov­ern­ment must ex­plain why con­struc­tion was stopped, why fi­nanc­ing was dis­con­tin­ued and whether it in­tends to com­plete or aban­don the fa­cil­i­ty.

“But what is in­ter­est­ing is when you look at the bud­get doc­u­ments and when you look at the al­lo­ca­tion, there is no mon­ey al­lo­cat­ed in this bud­get to com­plete that cen­tre for the so­cial­ly dis­placed.

“The Gov­ern­ment must tell the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go why they stalled this project. What is their po­si­tion as it re­lates to the so­cial­ly dis­placed, what is the time­line, and they must tell us clear­ly whether this Gov­ern­ment has tak­en a de­ci­sion to aban­don this project,” she said.

Ac­cord­ing to the 2024 Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s Re­port, $16.3 mil­lion had been al­lo­cat­ed to the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Ude­cott) for the project as of Sep­tem­ber 2024. A fur­ther $7.3 mil­lion was ear­marked for fis­cal 2025, but no al­lo­ca­tion was in­clud­ed in the UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion’s 2026 Bud­get.

The bud­get doc­u­ments in­di­cat­ed the five-storey fa­cil­i­ty was 49 per cent com­plete, with ex­ter­nal works, the main build­ing struc­ture, roof in­stal­la­tion and me­chan­i­cal, elec­tri­cal and plumb­ing works al­ready fin­ished.

When com­plet­ed, the South Quay fa­cil­i­ty is ex­pect­ed to ac­com­mo­date ap­prox­i­mate­ly 200 so­cial­ly dis­placed per­sons, 160 men and 40 women, and peo­ple re­quir­ing tem­po­rary ac­com­mo­da­tion fol­low­ing emer­gen­cies such as fires.

The cen­tre was al­so de­signed to pro­vide as­sess­ment and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion ser­vices through ameni­ties in­clud­ing a com­put­er lab, li­brary, in­take lounge, mul­ti­pur­pose hall, kitchen, laun­dries, bath­rooms, sep­a­rate male and fe­male dor­mi­to­ries and se­cu­ri­ty booths.