Point Fortin Borough
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Marlon Richardson Speaks - Pt 5
April 26, 2005
In terms of infrastructure, I would like to see Point Fortin develop into a city. But, I say that guardedly, because what I just said about keeping that community spirit together, we must be able to do it without losing that. That I know is a very thin balancing act. We have a lot of people and industries coming out of Point Fortin as well as coming in. We do not mind them coming, but they must be able to integrate into our way of life. We do not want the situation where people come in and try to completely destroy what we have worked so hard and so long to create. Employment, housing, and the national issues also apply to Point Fortin. I really think that we are a people who have a vision to see our town and our district developed into what it should be.
We have carried Trinidad and Tobago on our backs in terms of economics and should get justly what is ours. How that should be done is a case for us as politicians, and a case for the people to sit down with us, and work out exactly what is our next move. For instance, I would like to see the main road of Point Fortin be turned into a walking town where there is no vehicular traffic. I would like to see to the east and to the west going down to the Cape de Ville area become a little more developed. Put the simple infrastructure in place; have good drainage, good roads, good electrical, the new hospital that is to be built - a good state of the art hospital. What we also greatly waiting on is the highway, because Point Fortin is basically an end town. Cedros is there, but your journey either begins or ends at Point Fortin. For the development of any commerce, you must be a transit point where people meet. We do not want where it either ends or begins, we want where people passing through can access our services and our goods and create that commerce. Hopefully that highway will not only stop at Point, but will go straight to Cedros. So what you are looking at is developing the entire peninsular from Oropouche straight into Cedros.
We are trying to do an economics survey this year to see how much funds are passing through Point Fortin, and how it trickles down to the 'small man'. The average vendor I can say would quadruple sales per day in Point Fortin. No vendor will have anything left after Borough Day, they will sell out. It is guaranteed, that almost any event they go to they can sell and make money. We have been trying to stress to our people, that the opportunity is there for you. There are also the small promoters who will do small events and make money. From my information, the ATM machines have to be refilled almost daily for the next couple weeks because people are using much cash to access all these events. We are hoping that we can justify with an actual figure to the government of Trinidad and Tobago, the economical activity Borough Day creates so we can justify placing some funds into it because right now, this is run on a backwards basis.
The backwards basis being, that if you are going into a project, you will do your budget first. This doesn't operate like that. We do this Borough Day event while looking for money. We do not ever know how much money we will get because we have to ask the various ministries and our various corporate citizens. They are the ones who sponsor this massive event. We never know from year to year exactly how much they are going to pledge. It is run by faith, very hard work and the spirit of the people. It is hoped that this year we can carry a note through our MP or through the council, so the government will find it fit to place some money via the NCC, via whatever avenue, to place some serious money into Borough Day. This Borough Day cost a million dollars plus and we have to find a way to source those funds. If the government can see it fit and place some money into the coffers of the Point Fortin borough corporation or whatever entity it deems correct, I have no problem with that, if it is through the NCC I have no problem with that, but give us the funds to run this festival. We think that it can be justifiably quoted as a second national festival.
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