TOURISM officials are preparing to pump millions of dollars into refurbishing facilities at Maracas Beach.

Now almost 10 years after more than $7m was spent to change the entire landscape of the popular North Coast Beach under the Tourism and Industrial Development Company (TIDCO) and NIPDEC, money will be wasted to restore facilities that were left to run down.

Especially this bar, for which Howard Chin Lee had the original lease and was forced to give it up after he was appointed to the Patrick Manning Cabinet as National Security Minister.

The original cost of refurbishing the beach, under the first Manning administration was TT $4.5 million, but there were cost overruns which took the final figure to TT $7.1 million.

“In fact, as far as I can remember, NIPDEC had to go to court to get that money from TIDCO and they eventually had an out-of-court settlement,” a worker, who preferred anonymity, confided to TnT Mirror, last week.

“That restaurant remained open for just one year, and Chin Lee spent a lot of money to bring it up to standard, but he could not operate the lease while he was in Cabinet.

“As a result,” the worker continued, “he tried to sell it on the open market and there was no buyer for the lease and he was forced to close.

“But that was just part of the whole mess which has left vendors hampered by flood water whenever it rains, since they simply created an artificial beach at the site of the original car park, if you remember that,” he explained.

“Those abandoned life guard towers that you are seeing here, were meant to be rented out to people who wanted to camp on the beach, but that fell through.

Restaurant interior gutted.

Collapsed steps lead to the top floor of the
abandoned building.

Run-down restaurant and bar on Maracas Beach.

The adandoned lifeguard tower.

He added: “It was only after they built the three storey structure they realised it was ill-designed for lifeguards to have quick access to the beach.

“But it was left to rot.

“Now, the lifeguard administration building, which has a spanking new coat of paint, was originally meant to be toilet facilities and it is no better,” he ended, noting “that is just a small indication of the kind of horrors that we face here!

Indeed, on my trip last weekend, the scent of dead animals wafted through the main area of the car park where tourists and Trinis were buying and eating bake and shark.

SOURCES at the Chaguaramas Development Authority (CDA) claim that a simple problem means the spanking new facility at Macqueripe remains shut tight as people find all kinds of vantage points in the wide open car park to change after a swim.

“None of the (CDA) Security guards want to work there because when they built the guard booth at the entrance to the car park, no one thought of putting in toilets,” a CDA source explained.

“When we thought of hiring a security firm, the cost was just too high,” she continued.

“We know that it would be difficult for someone to work under those conditions and still no effort has been made to correct the situation for more than a year.

“Because of this, when you walk down to the beach you are easily assaulted by the smell of stale urine and sometimes human filth left behind by the people who are forced to relieve themselves,” the source noted.

But that is only a small part of the general neglect.

Piles of rubble, left behind by the storm surges from last year remain lying on Macqueripe.

Indeed it was a group of regular beachgoers who swim religiously on early mornings that gathered together to make the beach habitable for human beings.

Macqueripe’s toilet and changing facilities
shut tight.

A full carpark indicates the popularity of the
beach.

A tree grows over the shower area.

Trees have grown over the two showers that were installed at the bottom of the steps; and water, which looks like sewage, really is leaking through the ground, although CDA sources insist that the source of the water is an underground spring.

Lifeguards also use Macqueripe to train on weekends.

Dirty water seeps through the tree roots.

Broken concrete platform remains as rubble on Macqueripe Beach.