On­go­ing coastal ero­sion works in Pi­geon Point to save Ren­mar’s Restau­rant is rais­ing ques­tions about whether or not the restau­rant own­er’s close re­la­tion­ship with the Prime Min­is­ter has in­flu­enced the con­struc­tion.

Works be­gan about two weeks ago in the Pi­geon Point Her­itage Park by the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly to cre­ate a break­wa­ter that will pre­vent large swells from flood­ing the restau­rant, which is op­er­at­ed by Rene ‘Bas­so’ An­tho­ny.

The build­ing it­self is owned by the THA but reef tour boat op­er­a­tors told Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed they be­lieve An­tho­ny’s friend­ship with Dr Kei­th Row­ley is the dri­ving force be­hind the project.

When a Guardian Me­dia team vis­it­ed the Her­itage Park on Thurs­day, the tour guides were adamant that their busi­ness­es will be dras­ti­cal­ly af­fect­ed by the project.

Tour guide Ter­rence Pitt said the area where the break­wa­ter ex­tends in­to is the on­ly vi­able chan­nel for glass-bot­tom boats to re­turn tourists and vis­i­tors to the beach af­ter tours.

Pitt linked Row­ley to the project be­cause he said the Prime Min­is­ter held a birth­day bash at the restau­rant two days be­fore high tides flood­ed it.

He said the tour op­er­a­tors were not told what the project was, how long it would last and whether it was a per­ma­nent fix­ture.

“No­body is say­ing what is tak­ing place, all we know is that the Prime Min­is­ter had a par­ty here, the sea was rough and wa­ter went in­to the bar and the next day we see a set of boul­ders com­ing in­to the place, no­body knows what is go­ing on,” Pitt said.

Pitt said while he un­der­stands that coastal ero­sion is a ma­jor is­sue that needs to be ad­dressed in Pi­geon Point, the fact that An­tho­ny’s busi­ness is the on­ly one ben­e­fit­ting from this cur­rent project rais­es a lot of ques­tions.

Guardian Me­dia spoke to An­tho­ny who said the op­er­a­tors were on­ly up to mis­chief.

He said the THA was du­ty-bound to pro­tect his in­vest­ment in the busi­ness as he has been op­er­at­ing on Pi­geon Point for the past 12 years.

“Cer­tain times of the year, the sea gets rough and all the wa­ter rush­es straight in­to the build­ing so they take a de­ci­sion to do some­thing about it…it is tem­po­rary be­cause they are go­ing to do a break­wa­ter from here straight down to Co­co Reef,” An­tho­ny said.

He said the tour op­er­a­tors do not have the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties he does, as he pays rent and em­ploy­ees and they could not un­der­stand how great of a loss he stands to make.

“Those guys on the beach don’t un­der­stand, I am go­ing to be los­ing a lot of mon­ey, it is some days I didn’t open, al­most five weeks I didn’t open, I have staff to pay, rent to pay, those guys don’t have noth­ing so the THA is try­ing to save this build­ing for me to sur­vive be­cause I have a lot of in­vest­ment,” An­tho­ny said.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to the THA for com­ment on Thurs­day with­out suc­cess.