Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Jour­nal­ist

Joshua.Seemu­n­gal@guardian.co.tt

More than three years af­ter the then Hous­ing Min­is­ters Camille Robin­son-Reg­is and Adri­an Leonce, as well as St Au­gus­tine Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Khadi­jah Ameen, over­saw a sod-turn­ing cer­e­mo­ny for the Orop­une Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, the project re­mains in­com­plete.

The pro­posed $14 mil­lion project, a col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween Ude­cott and the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC), was sched­uled for com­ple­tion by ear­ly 2024.

Al­so pro­posed, as part of the over­all project, was a $22 mil­lion Orop­une Com­mer­cial Cen­tre.

De­scribed as a “Christ­mas gift for the com­mu­ni­ty,” the Com­mer­cial Cen­tre was sched­uled for com­ple­tion in mid-2024.

It was de­signed to in­clude a mi­ni-mart, phar­ma­cy, rentable shops, park­ing, a load­ing bay and a po­lice post.

Its an­nounce­ment came three years af­ter the HDC de­mol­ished an il­le­gal hard­ware and lim­ing spot in the area.

How­ev­er, when Guardian Me­dia’s In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk vis­it­ed the site last week, in­stead of the pro­posed two-storey build­ing—with an au­di­to­ri­um, com­put­er lab, gym, laun­dry, li­brary and kitchen—there was on­ly a ce­ment foun­da­tion, a few mounds of grav­el, and a col­laps­ing gal­vanised perime­ter.

In the 2025 Pub­lic Sec­tor In­vest­ment Pro­gramme (PSIP) doc­u­ments, the com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre project was list­ed as 13 per cent com­plete.

There was no men­tion of the project in the 2026 bud­get doc­u­ments.

Last Sep­tem­ber, Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tion Desk re­port­ed that work had stopped on a $14.4 mil­lion state-of-the-art com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre in Waller­field, which be­gan un­der for­mer MP Fos­ter Cum­mings, but halt­ed af­ter elec­tions.

That $14,452,413.02 con­tract for the cen­tre was award­ed to Vee’s En­ter­pris­es Ltd by the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T (Ude­cott)—the project man­ag­er. Ude­cott ex­e­cut­ed the con­tract on April 14, 2023, for its client, the Min­istry of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment.

Blame game

For­mer Hous­ing min­is­ter Robin­son-Reg­is said the project stalled un­der the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress ad­min­is­tra­tion and not the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment.

“Ude­cott was the project man­ag­er. This project was pro­ceed­ing with a com­ple­tion date of March 2026, how­ev­er, I am in­formed that when the UNC as­sumed of­fice in May 2025, no pay­ments to the con­trac­tor were made de­spite nu­mer­ous re­quests for pay­ment. Noth­ing was forth­com­ing.

“My fur­ther in­for­ma­tion is that some­time in Feb­ru­ary of 2026, the con­trac­tor sent a no­tice of ter­mi­na­tion. As far as I know, this project nev­er stalled un­der the PNM,” she said.

But St Au­gus­tine MP, and Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, Khadi­jah Ameen, re­fut­ed this, say­ing that the Orop­une Com­mu­ni­ty and Com­mer­cial Cen­tre projects stalled un­der the PNM.

“PNM turned the sod for two projects when they were in gov­ern­ment. Both just had mi­nor work done, then they stalled. We were not giv­en a rea­son. Iron­i­cal­ly, sim­i­lar projects in a near­by PNM con­stituen­cy that had sod turn­ing at the same time were com­plet­ed. So we are very con­cerned. I have writ­ten to the rel­e­vant min­is­ters with a view to hav­ing the projects com­mence, but while the present chal­lenge is mon­ey, I know they will have to look in­to the pre­vi­ous con­tracts and do their au­dits, etc,” Ameen said.

Res­i­dents call for com­ple­tion

Hav­ing ac­com­pa­nied her 13-year-old autis­tic son, Kyle Scott, to school, Orop­une res­i­dent Tedra Scott stopped by the com­mu­ni­ty dou­bles stand to speak with her friends.

The dai­ly chat of­fers Tedra an op­por­tu­ni­ty to de­stress from mount­ing trou­bles.

She used to work as a con­struc­tion site su­per­vi­sor, but the de­mands of car­ing for her son forced her to re­sign.

Her HDC apart­ment has no win­dows, while the toi­lets and pipes are leak­ing, she said.

She wants bet­ter liv­ing con­di­tions for her son, but can­not af­ford to do so.

“Rais­ing an autis­tic son in this com­mu­ni­ty has been hor­ri­ble. There is noth­ing for my son in this com­mu­ni­ty. I be­lieve a com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre would be ben­e­fi­cial for my son.

“Child care is more than my in­come. I used to have to pay for be­fore-school and af­ter-school care, with­out so­cial ben­e­fits. I am pay­ing $300 a day to send my son to school. I am not work­ing. Where am I get­ting mon­ey from? It is hard. If it is hard in­side the home, how am I fix­ing the win­dows? How am I fix­ing the leak­ing pipes and leak­ing toi­lets? These are the types of liv­ing con­di­tions that my autis­tic child is liv­ing in. How do you want him to live?” she said, adding that she hoped this re­porter was sent by God to get her help.

In the ini­tial stages of the project’s con­cep­tion, res­i­dents said they felt in­vest­ed.

They said they were con­sult­ed about its de­sign, even hav­ing a say in what colour it would be paint­ed.

Then, things went qui­et, they said.

“We were all look­ing for­ward to it. Camille Robin­son-Reg­is was the hous­ing min­is­ter at the time; she, Adri­an Leonce, and Khadi­jah Ameen were there when they came to do the sod turn­ing. They were all there tak­ing pic­tures, and then the project start­ed. They got as far as the foun­da­tion, and then the next thing you know, an elec­tion hap­pened, and then every­thing came to a screech­ing halt.

“When Ameen came in, she came in and did a site vis­it at the site. Big fan­fare, a whole set of peo­ple. Took pic­tures, and next thing, you know, that was it…One day, I saw the con­trac­tor come with a crane and a lit­tle con­tain­er of­fice that they had; they put it on the crane, and they left. The place has been locked up since then. The gal­vanise has been falling since then. Strips of gal­vanised sheet­ing are miss­ing, so who knows what is go­ing on?” a fe­male res­i­dent, who lives near the pro­posed site, said.

She said that while res­i­dents un­der­stand how pol­i­tics works, they can­not un­der­stand why mon­ey is be­ing al­lowed to go to waste.

“It’s ridicu­lous. What hap­pened to the ma­te­r­i­al that the con­trac­tor would have been go­ing to use to com­plete the project? What hap­pened to the needs of the com­mu­ni­ty? The cry of the com­mu­ni­ty has al­ways been we have no place to meet. We have to meet on the bas­ket­ball court for the Po­lice Youth Club,” she lament­ed.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Fran­cis Dou­glas, agreed that the com­mu­ni­ty could use the cen­tres.

“It would be good if a sto­ry could get some aware­ness, as you could see, all the gal­vanise falling there.”

A third res­i­dent, in his late 20s, be­lieved the cen­tres could of­fer the com­mu­ni­ty’s youth a chance to de­vel­op them­selves.

“The on­ly thing for youth around here is the Po­lice Youth Club, but oth­er than that, nah,” he said.