AROUND the middle of 2004, Atlantic LNG (ALNG), the gas liquefaction company operating in Point Fortin publicised that as part of its “Point Fortin Plan” it had launched an initiative to set up a Business Development Fund for small and medium enterprises in the community.

At the much publicised launch, ALNG brought in Ken Gordon to talk about a business funding programme that was set up by bpTT for the people of Mayaro.

ALNG also advertised that it had set up a committee to conceptualise and develop a structure from which the Fund will operate.

Also, it said the committee was engaged in receiving various models being proposed by interested organisations.

Some of its terms of reference were to liaise with the community and to assist in identifying the areas of business activities and the features that should be incorporated in the formulation of the selected plan.

In addition, the committee’s job was to formulate criteria for determining eligibility to participate, and to recommend the level of funding that would be required to meet the objectives of the Fund.

ESTHER
  LE GENDRE

STEVE
BARTLETT

ALNG advertised that the target date for the implementation of the Fund would have been January 1, 2005.

But that date came and went and so has January 1, 2006, but not a word again about the Fund.

Residents are now asking ALNG to say something concerning the Fund, especially since the company’s business has brought much hardship to their under-privileged fence line neighbours, by causing them to lose their means of earning a living.

ALNG’s Corporate Communications Manager Esther Le Gendre was named as a member of the committee responsible to chose a model for the Fund and to get it running.

ALNG’s Vice-President, Steve Bartlett had also stated that the Point Fortin Chamber of Industry and Commerce would be partnering with the committee in administering the Fund.

Some New Lands Village dwellers who have been waiting to hear when the Fund would become operational, have expressed a desire to hear what Le Gendre and Bartlett have to say about the inordinate  delay.

They have also expressed a desire to see the many unemployed youth of New Lands especially, benefit from the Fund.

Those youths, in particular, have suffered much loss by ALNG’s activities in their community.

Their losses include the use of the sea, the mangroves, their kitchen gardens and their playgrounds.

They commended ALNG for the attention paid to “Point Fortin’s finest” with the programme geared toward bolstering the well-being of the 10 best successes at the SEA exams annually.

The programme was instituted in 2000.

They also hailed ALNG’s plant operators training programme. But residents feel that apart from targetting the young top achievers in the community, ALNG needs to give something back to the young people of the villages of New Lands and also Pointe Ligoure that they have distressed.

As one villager said: “It would be a crime if ALNG did not go into New Lands and Point Ligoure and offer the under-privileged young people there some beneficial opportunities to compensate for what ALNG has snatched from them.

“They may not have the qualifications to access their plant operators training programmes, but they can be provided with motivational speakers and psychologists to educate them about how to go on and how to cope, how to survive and live healthy productive lives, despite the changes which were forced on them.

“The Point Fortin youth, despite all the pressures on them, largely have not chosen to get into crime.”

When TnT Mirror visited New Lands recently, the young people said that they were willing to work and would welcome any course of study that ALNG could provide to help them to succeed in earning a living.

Some said that they would like to have a stipend while studying as they have no one to maintain them while they go to school.