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‘Commercial’ onions harvested
By Carla Bridglal carla.bridglal@trinidadexpress.com
Story Created: Mar 1, 2012 at 1:29 AM ECT
Story Updated: Mar 1, 2012 at 12:51 PM ECT
The first-ever commercially viable onion crop in Trinidad and Tobago was harvested yesterday at the Tucker Valley Farm, Chaguaramas, in a pilot project run by the Ministry of Food Production and local company Caribbean Chemicals Ltd.
Approximately 30,000 plants in three varieties were seeded in November, transplanted in December, and were ripe for picking 90 days later.
“We didn’t tell the media about this project four months ago. We wanted to do it and make sure it could work and then bring you all here to show the fruits of our labour,” said Food Production Minister Vasant Bharath.
“Onion is one of four crops we want to focus on as a staple in the local diet—along with carrots, potatoes and peanuts—and from an importation point of view, they account for over $500 million (spent on food) in last five years. This project will help reduce the food import bill and save foreign exchange,” said Joe Pires, managing director of Caribbean Chemicals.
Pires said this was the first time onions were grown locally on a commercial scale, despite research being conducted in the 1960s and 1970s on the viability of the crop—even though other Caribbean islands had previously used the same research to implement their own sustainable onion production.
He said restaurants were already on board to purchase the entire crop because the flavour of a fresh onion, as opposed to one in storage for two months before shipping, is far superior.
He added that a 100-acre farm could provide 20 per cent of the local supply of onions, and his company had tendered their request to the Ministry to acquire land to run a commercial onion operation at Chaguaramas.
Over the last five years, Trinidad and Tobago has imported $100 million worth of onions.
Chaguaramas is one of three locations (along with Cora and Icacos) in Trinidad with the ideal sandy loam soil type to grow onions. Bharath said the only thing that prevented onion farming in the past was the lack of will, and he looks forward to seeing onions and other nontraditional crops, like carrots, being developed.
An experimental farm for commercially viable carrots was supposed to be run simultaneously with the onion farm, but disease and irrigation problems caused the crop to fail.
A second attempt is underway.
Bharath added that this was part of the Ministry’s mission to increase food security and ensure a steady flow of food to local markets.
Also on the Ministry’s agenda is rehabilitating and resuscitating the citrus industry, with an estimated 150,000 citrus plants set to be sown this year, said Bharath.
He added that 3,000 acres specifically designated for rice farming will also be made available later this year.
The Ministry’s Seed Production Facility has also been relocated to the Tucker Valley Farm and is expected to provide seedlings for staple crops like corn, pigeon peas, bodi, ochro, eggplant and sorrel to be made available to the local farming community.
http://www.trinidadexpress.com/business ... 87273.html
UML wrote:but the houses could be built and still not issued. As you so rightly said your sister in law got hers in 2009.....which it could be assumed that houses were completed, so why are these ppl STILL waiting for houses?!!!
so building it does not mean it will be issued to those DESERVING it!!!
..especially with EQUALITY AND FAIRNESS!!
#frothments
#totingcyahdone
#alwayshappywhenpnmbeatingup
#pnmunderachievers
slippy1 wrote:UML wrote:but the houses could be built and still not issued. As you so rightly said your sister in law got hers in 2009.....which it could be assumed that houses were completed, so why are these ppl STILL waiting for houses?!!!
so building it does not mean it will be issued to those DESERVING it!!!
..especially with EQUALITY AND FAIRNESS!!
#frothments
#totingcyahdone
#alwayshappywhenpnmbeatingup
#pnmunderachievers
Not toting meh boy...just saying that the houses were built. My in law got hers without the floors being tiled and one bathroom being incomplete, but she was happy regardless. And I'm saying that this should be a lesson learnt for the PNM, that if houses are 80% complete, they should still issue it.
The houses being "incomplete" was one used by Gaynor-Dick Forde as to the reason why they weren't issued and I can understand that because if you give out incomplete houses and it starts to fall apart then that's another issue.
So again I'm just saying that next time PNM should give out the houses(or rather the ministry of HDC) and not let another government take credit for what they DID NOT DO
Couva Children’s Hospital and Multi Training Centre for Medicine, Nursing and Pharmacology - Ongoing
The Couva Children's Hospital and Multi-Training Centre for Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacology and Optometry will be a self-contained, centralized medical facility conveniently located off the Sir Solomon Hochoy Highway, 1km south of the Couva Overpass and will be equipped with the most modern and high-end medical equipment.
The Couva Children's Hospital and Multi-Training Centre has been designed to fit seamlessly within the surrounding landscape to take advantage of the site's natural topography, views and existing tree lines.
The Hospital Facility will consist of 230 beds split between private, semi‐private and wards and includes full inpatient services for both Children and Adults. The design proposes a single 3‐storey Bed Tower dedicated to Pediatrics and Women, containing 80 beds and a second 3‐storey Bed Tower dedicated to Adult Patients, containing 150 beds. Also included are Emergency Departments with separate entrances for Adults and Pediatric Patients.
Other important services within the Couva Children's Hospital includes:-
• Diagnostic and Imaging
• Surgery Department
• Burn and Plastics Program
• Critical Care
• Mother and Child, Birthing
• Pediatric Outpatient Clinic
• Adult Outpatient Clinic
• Pediatric Rehabilitation
• Pharmacy and Laboratory
• Helipad to provide helicopter access for emergencies
The Multi-Training Facility will be focused on Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacology and Optometry which will be located in an adjacent building to the Hospital block connected by a covered pathway.
A single Central Utility Plant will serve both buildings and the project will also include Tertiary Level Waste Water Treatment Plant specific to the development. External works within this phase also includes 620 parking spaces, roads and landscaping.
The Project is being designed and constructed to the following Engineering and Technical Design Standards:
• American Institute of Architects-Guidelines for Design and Construction of Health Care Facilities (2006) (AIA/FGI)
• ASHRAE 62
• ASHRAE
• NFPA 99
• NFPA 101
• NFPA 13
• NFPA 70-2011
• Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organization - USA (JCAHO)
• OSHA
• SMACNA
• IEEE Standard 142
• IEEE Standard 602
• IES Lighting Handbook
• T&T Plumbing Code
• TTS 171 Part 1
• TTS 171 Part 2
• CP 326
http://www.udecott.com/index.php/cc/cc_ ... l_ongoing/
Toco Lighthouse restored
By RALPH BANWARIE Monday, September 26 2011
TOURISM Minister Dr Rupert Griffith guarantees those who wish to visit the Toco Lighthouse will be safe. He assured visitors of the safety when visiting the landmark. Toco is one of the communities under curfew.
Dr Griffith gave this assurance in his address at Toco Lighthouse Enhancement unveiling last Monday. Griffith said Galera Point, where the lighthouse is located, was one of the safest areas in Toco.
He disclosed police will be conducting regular patrols and security guards will be placed at the Lighthouse.
The minister has asked that the Toco Lighthouse be marketed worldwide as a tourist attraction. Improvements to the area include a 10,000 square feet car park. Dr Griffith said this project was a collaborative effort among the Tourism Development Company (TDC), Ministry of Works and Transport, Sangre Grande Regional Corporation and the non-governmental organisation, Turtle Village Trust.
http://www.newsday.co.tt/news/0,147865.html
j.o.e wrote:http://www.newsday.co.tt/news/0,130841.html
Union village gets $5M centre
Monday, November 15 2010
COMMUNITY Develop-ment Minister Nizam Baksh has urged residents of Union Village, Claxton Bay, to utilise all of the facilities, including a well-equipped gym in a spanking new $5 million community centre which he officially declared open on Saturday.
Opened Nov 2010....Started and Completed by previous Gov't. I know because I've been there
Cocoyea complex now for all
By Camille Bethel South Bureau
Story Created: Jul 15, 2010 at 12:41 AM ECT
Story Updated: Jul 23, 2010 at 2:33 AM ECT
A recreation complex built across the road from former prime minister Patrick Manning's childhood home in Cocoyea, San Fernando, will no longer be for the exclusive use of villagers there.
The facility, which includes two swimming pools, will be opened "for the people to use", Community Development Minister Nizam Baksh said yesterday.
It costs $150,000 a month for the facility's upkeep.
The complex includes a 25-metre adult swimming pool, children's pool, cooldown pool, shower facilities, 264-seat pavilion, changing rooms, staff room, classrooms and a basement area equipped with underwater vision panels so swimmers can be viewed from underwater.
There is also a play park, football field and netball court. The facility was opened by Manning in 2007, but the cost of the project was never mentioned.
Baksh toured several community centres under construction in South and Central Trinidad yesterday. He said the Cocoyea facility "is grossly underused because the MP for the area (Manning) had indicated the facility was specifically for the people of Cocoyea. But we want to change that. There are two swimming pools, an adult and a children's pool, so we want to open it up to include swim clubs that may be looking for a place to train to be able to use it".
Baksh said since it was school vacation, parents and children should be able to use those pools. He said he would upgrade the facility to earn more income.
"We want to keep more activities there like weddings, to break even," Baksh said.
Baksh also toured the Gulf View, Preysal and Waterloo Community Centres where he met with the contractors and residents of the areas. These centres, he said, will include gyms, and state-of-the-art kitchens where people can be trained in the culinary arts.
"We want to educate the people, but they must know that these facilities are there for them to use. This is a gift to the people," he said.
The centres, he said, will be managed by a community-based management team.
http://www.trinidadexpress.com/news/98479634.html
Baksh tours community centres
By LAUREL V WILLIAMS Friday, July 16 2010
AT LEAST two community centres will soon be handed over to the respective community members as a gift from Government, Community Development Minister Nizam Baksh said.
Speaking to Newsday following a day-long tour of four soon-to-be opened community centres on Wednesday, Baksh said he was quite pleased with what he saw. Accompanied by a team of officials from the ministry, including Permanent Secretary Angela Jack, together with contractors, Baksh expressed satisfaction at the work done so far.
First stop on the tour was the Gulf View Community Centre at Savanna Drive, La Romaine, then to the Cocoyea Recreational Facility at St Andrews Park West, Cocoyea in San Fernando.
The team also visited the Preysal Community Centre located at Sealy Trace West, Polo Ground Road, Couva, and lastly the Waterloo Community Centre on the Corner of Waterloo Road and Butler Village Street, Carapichaima.
“We are here to view the status of the centres and to prepare ourselves for the formal opening. We are satisfied so far with what we have seen. The design will allow for many things to take place at the same time. There is a gym in all, a kitchen so culinary arts could be done, a computer room,” Baksh said. “This is a gift from us to members of these communities,” he added while at the Waterloo centre.
The permanent secretary added that although the centres are more or less completed, there are a lot of planning involved in the formal opening that is required.
“Based on the visit today, we have to go back and plan, plan with the ministry, with village groups, the MP’s etc. We anticipate that very soon at least this one (Waterloo) and the one at Preysal will be opened soon since both are completed. The one at Gulf View is 95 percent completed,” Jack said.http://newsday.co.tt/politics/0,124101.html
Repairing Shoddy work done by the PNM administration
Water and Electricity conduit pipes which were laid down at the Reform Village residential development site in Williamsville
Shoddy EMBDC work to cost taxpayers $100m
Yvonne Webb
Published:
Thursday, June 9, 2011
WASA’s chief executive Ganga Singh, second from right, points to the exposed water and electricity conduit pipes which were laid down at the Reform Village residential development site in Williamsville during a site visit yesterday. Next to Singh is WASA’s communications manager Ellen Lewis and WASA’s general manager, project implementation, Mano Bridgelal. PHOTOS: RISHI RAGOONATH
Taxpayers will have to fork out $100 million for remedial water works at ten Estate Management and Business Development Company Limited (EMBDC) sites. So said CEO of the Water and Sewage Authority (WASA), Ganga Singh, yesterday. He blamed shoddy workmanship by private contractors under the former administration. Singh, who toured one of the projects at Reform Village, South Trinidad, found water and electricity lines running parallel to each other underground, use of materials condemned by WASA more than 20 years ago and leaking pipes.
Accompanying Singh on the tour were EMBDC’s CEO Seebalack Singh, general manager, project implementation, WASA, Mann Bridgelal and Carol dos Santos, manager new service, WASA, who is also co-ordinating the team appointed by Food Production Minister Vasant Bharath to review the project.
Singh (S) explained more than $429 million already was spent on the projects undertaken five years ago, on some 4,700 residential lots on former Caroni (1975) Limited lands which should have been delivered within 15 months. He said to date not a single lot had been delivered. He added that the cost to develop the plots could increase significantly.
He said the contractor responsible for the unacceptable job was no longer in the employ of the EMBDC. However, he could not say whether that contractor would face any penalties. The tour took place following comments by Opposition Senator Fitzgerald Hinds in the Upper House on Tuesday that WASA is doing remedial work for EMDBC for more than $100 million, without tendering. He also accused Singh (G) and a woman identified only by the initials CD, of being involved in the activities taking place at the EMBDC. At a news conference on the site, Singh (G) confirmed: “WASA is in fact doing work for the EMBDC, but not with the kind of insinuation, or the kind of innuendo Senator Hinds speaks of.”
He said Carol dos Santos, the person referred to as CD, was appointed to co-ordinate the various State agencies, following a meeting in April, called by Bharath, which included the various stakeholders, T&TEC, WASA, EMBDC, and the Ministries of Food Production, Works and Drainage. Dos Santos explained that no approval was granted by the regulatory bodies for the sites and they were redoing work which had not been done properly to bring it up to the required standards. “Clearly on the basis of Reform, here, the water (lines) cannot co-exist alongside the electricity. This is a definite no, no. It is a safety hazard, it is a health hazard and it can lead to fatalities,” Singh (G) said. He added: “To do this remedial work, it would naturally incur additional costs. We have projected on the ten sites, for the water sector, approximately $100 million.
“Once more, the taxpayer is called upon to bear the burden because of the incompetence of the private sector contractors and the lack of supervision by the EMBDC in the last regime,” the WASA CEO said.
The Reform site, which comprises 737 lots, is to be handed over by the end of August, he said. Bridgelal explained that based on the current inspection, the drawings of the site were not up to mark. He added: “The infrastructure existing is not what is on the drawings. Several items are missing and we cannot accept the drawings to begin with. “Secondly, the materials used on these project sites for the water aspect are not consistent with the standards set by WASA. “There is a pipeline existing here that has been condemned by WASA over 20 years ago. “These things must be checked and verified before WASA could accept the infrastructure here to put our precious water.”
http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/2011/06/ ... ayers-100m
Granny walks $1M road
By Darcel Choy Wednesday, August 17 2011
click on pic to zoom in
Keep on walking: Lynette 'Granny' Luces walks down the newly paved road from her home (above) at Lewis Trace, San Juan, yesterday. ...
Keep on walking: Lynette 'Granny' Luces walks down the newly paved road from her home (above) at Lewis Trace, San Juan, yesterday. ...
A road was hand built at the cost of $1 million to ease the suffering of popular veteran marathon runner Lynette “Granny” Luces, 83, who experienced difficulties accessing her home at Lewis Trace, Quarry Road, San Juan.
The road which took two months to complete had been in a terrible condition for over 15 years. At the opening ceremony yesterday Works Minister Jack Warner said he was touched when he was asked to build the road for Luces.
“I felt that an icon like Granny shouldn’t be suffering the way she was suffering to get to her home,” he said.
He explained that the road had to be hand built because the equipment could not get on the hill. Work was also done to construct retaining walls and drains.
Luces admitted that it wasn’t easy for her to be going up and down the steep hill.
“Sometimes I used to be pregnant and carrying water but I always believed that things would be better. A few weeks ago, I was coming up here and lower down it had bush and I couldn’t pass good so I came down with a hoe and started cleaning the place and I knelt down and said, ‘Oh Jehovah’ because I believed it would have road and here it is. Look at what is happening, I feel so happy, it would make me lean to God more,” she said.
She remembered when she would run errands she would have to leave her ten children at home as she felt she was more able to go up and down the hill.
When asked how long has she been requesting the road be repaired, she said she did not want to embarrass the former government but remembered a speech that Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar made earlier this year.
“Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar was giving a speech and she pointed at me, ‘I want to be like Granny Luces’...I always believe as a woman that I’ll get a road because a woman will know what women passing through,” she said.
MP for St Ann’s East Joanne Thomas said she has made recommendations to have the road named after Luces in her honour.
http://www.newsday.co.tt/news/0,145708.html
Hasely Crawford Stadium gets new $9.2m track
Keith Clement
Published:
Sunday, July 24, 2011
The long-awaited running track at the Hasely Crawford Stadium has been installed and will get its first test today, when the Hampton International Games get going from 2 pm. Yesterday, members of the media were invited to tour the facility and got testimony from some athletes about the new IAAF Certified Class 1 Synthetic Athletic Track that cost TT $9,229,607.00. With the completion of the track, the stadium, which is T&T’s premier international facility, has been upgraded from a Class 2 track to a Certified Class 1, which—according to Errol Ashby, the chief executive officer (CEO) of the Sport Company of T&T—will enable the best athletes in the world compete here for local fans. “This will also help in boosting the sport-tourism market in T&T,” according to Ashwin Creed, the acting permanent secretary in the Ministry of Sport. “This track is value for money. This track has a 15-20-year life span and we have gotten an eight-year guarantee. This track is the best installed in T&T ever.”
He pointed that the track installation project was scheduled to be completed by June 15, but the intense precipitation over the last few weeks severely hampered the progress of the German contractor, Porplastics. Creed pointed that both the Ministry and the SporTT did their research and Proplastics presented the best offer. Ashby, pointed out: “The process of tendering and selection was done above board and the right company was selected, there’s no doubt about that.” Ashby also said that no entertainment events are booked for the stadium for July 30, 31 or August 1, despite radio advertisements which have said otherwise. Creed said: “We’ve done our research in relationship with regards to sports and culture being staged at the same venue and we are prepared to address that. In fact, the Sport Company is in the process of purchasing a new type of covering for both the track and the playing field.”
http://www.guardian.co.tt/sport/2011/07 ... -92m-track
Warner at Laventille Road paving: Not everybody with letterhead is a contractor
Kalifa Clyne
Published:
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Works and Infrastructure Minister Jack Warner says he will not apologise for awarding contracts to the most competent contractors in preference to the cheapest bidder.
He said this while addressing an audience during Monday’s opening ceremony of the Lower Laventille Road, East Dry River, Port-of-Spain.
Warner said a weekly newspaper had reported that he had awarded a bridge contract to the highest bidder.
“Not everybody with a letterhead and a shovel or a backhoe is a contractor,” said Warner.
Warner revealed that many contractors had refused to pave Laventille Road because of fear of the residents and taxi drivers.
Warner also took the time to admonish people who felt that Government did not do work in constituencies held by Opposition members.
“We fix roads in La Brea, Point Fortin, Diego Martin North and Diego Martin central,” said Warner.
He added that attention would be given to all areas saying they would not suffer because of politics.
He said however that works would take time as every project could not be completed at once.
The road was completed by Junior Sammy Construction Company (JUSAMCO) and CALCO Construction.
http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/2011/09/ ... contractor
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