Minister of Local Government Chandresh Sharma toured the existing facilities on Sunday and promised that work on the market will start soon. However he told reporters that before that he wants to make sure that "we are getting value for money."
He noted that the previous government had not been good project managers and that almost every project undertaken under its watch had huge cost overruns.
"In Trinidad and Tobago we know that we have not been getting value for money. It is clear that every project undertaken by the previous government incurred cost overruns by three, four or five times," Sharma said.
Former Prime Minister Patrick Manning turned the sod for the market in April and promised that vendors would have access to a temporary facility during the construction. The new $45-million was to be build by the Community Improvement Service Ltd (CISL), one of the newly formed State companies.
Construction of the temporary facility and the market itself stopped with the change of government.
Sharma promised that he would give priority to the Marabella market and announced that work would begin next week. He suggested that the cost of $45 million might be too high, noting that vendors were satisfied with the sheds which were constructed at a cost of $200,000.
"We assured them that vendors would be taken care of and citizens can come to a market that is up to standard," he said.
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