Port-of-Spain May­or Joel Mar­tinez is reach­ing out to the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty to step in and in­vest in the cap­i­tal city to take a more ac­tive role in fix­ing its prob­lems.

He was speak­ing at a break­fast meet­ing at City Hall Wednes­day morn­ing. He said he heard the cries of the cit­i­zens and the oth­er stake­hold­ers to clean the city, fix the pot­holes and more. He said peo­ple of­ten for­get that there is a fixed bud­get in which the ma­jor­i­ty is usu­al­ly spent on salaries. In an im­pas­sioned plea, he called for the busi­ness com­mit­tee to step in and help.

“Peo­ple don't re­alise that they look at the big pic­ture. They see we get $250 mil­lion. But 200 of the 250 mil­lion goes to salaries and re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture. And yet still [they say] fix the pot­holes. Fix the leaks, get rid of that, do this, pick up the garbage and things like that,” Mar­tinez said.

He said even though it was the role of the Cor­po­ra­tion to clean the streets, the Cor­po­ra­tion doesn't dirty the streets but his team is al­ways called up­on to keep them clean. He said if busi­ness­es can, they should fix some of their is­sues them­selves as well.

May­or Mar­tinez com­mend­ed Unit Trust Cor­po­ra­tion and oth­er busi­ness­es which have tak­en care of the Bri­an Lara Prom­e­nade’s south­ern side, and he wants busi­ness­es to do the same in their area.

“We want to en­gage the rest of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty for the rest of the prom­e­nade,” Mar­tinez said. “We want to ask you to up­grade your fa­cades as a busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty. Up­grade your store­front. Paint it.”

Al­so speak­ing at the break­fast meet­ing was Trade and In­dus­try Min­is­ter Paula Gopee Scoon. She said she was hap­py to see busi­ness­es bounc­ing back af­ter the pan­dem­ic. Speak­ing specif­i­cal­ly about the phys­i­cal spaces she said the Gov­ern­ment is do­ing its part to en­hance the look of the city. She point­ed specif­i­cal­ly to the re­fur­bish­ment of the Red House. Min­is­ter Gopee Scoon called on busi­ness­es to take a spe­cial look at clean­ing up their sur­round­ings, es­pe­cial­ly as the 60th An­niver­sary of In­de­pen­dence draws near.

“I think we al­so want to ask you what you can do on your part, to en­sure that Port-of-Spain looks brighter and smarter, I cer­tain­ly want to ask you as we turn 60, to do what­ev­er you can so that when we wake up in the morn­ing of let's say, the 15th of Au­gust, that we see a bright Port-of-Spain that is cel­e­brat­ing the in­de­pen­dence,” Gopee- Scoon said. “So please do as much as you can and as proud Trin­bag­o­ni­ans to en­sure that your front spaces of your busi­ness­es are in fact clean and bright and dec­o­rat­ed.”

The Trade and In­dus­try Min­is­ter al­so agreed with the may­or say­ing, hav­ing an at­trac­tive lo­ca­tion or at­trac­tive space will al­ways en­cour­age cus­tomers to keep com­ing back to Port of Spain. She ac­knowl­edged the is­sue of crime and se­cu­ri­ty, which was raised by the busi­ness own­ers, was get­ting Gov­ern­ment's at­ten­tion.