Kublalsingh: People not against industry

Published: 12 Aug 2009

University of the West Indies lecturer in the Social Sciences faculty Dr Wayne Kublalsingh has welcomed additional industries in La Brea and Point Fortin, but warned that an aluminium smelter will be an economic bust. He was commenting on Prime Minister Patrick Manning’s announcement in Point Fortin Monday night that the Alutrint plant would be built. In addition, Manning said, several other industrial plants would be constructed in that part of the country. Manning said people were not opposed to the smelter, but to industrialisation.

However, Kublalsingh, who has been very vocal against the construction of the smelter, said: “We welcome that (other industries) because the people have been left stranded, especially the young women and the young men. They are seriously in need of stable employment in La Brea. But of course it depends on what kind of industries they are.” However, he said all their tests had shown that a smelter would be an economic bust for the country. “I would like the Prime Minister to come to the public and test the smelter on economic grounds. The cost, that is the financial cost. The health cost and ecological cost, outweigh the small financial gain that would be gained from a smelter. It is the Chinese who would earn the grand bulk of the returns in the smelter economy,” said Kublalsingh. Saying they were in support of industrialisation, he said the residents had proposed three alternatives: an aluminium recycling facility, an industrial food park and a solar cell industry. Physicist Dr Peter Vine said Manning had completely misinterpreted what protesters had been saying. He said the protesters had already sent to Professor Julien a design for an alternative plant on the proposed smelter site which generated electricity from sunlight. Source: http://guardian.co.tt/news/general/2009/08/12/kublalsingh-people-not-against-industry