By RORY ROSTANT Thursday, October 1 2009

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PLEASE, HELP US: Filipino children stretch their hands as they try to get the remains of a food handout at a makeshift evacuation centre in a school y...

THE $200 million Tamana Intech park, the flagship technology park under the umbrella of Evolving Technologies Company Limited (Etech), is being scaled down because funds have dried up.

“Tamana requires significant investment which we do not have at this stage of the game,” revealed Trade Minister Mariano Browne in an interview with reporters at an Etech ICT (Information, Communication and Technology) financing forum at the Hilton Conference Centre yesterday. ICT contributes about three percent of GDP and the industry’s largest customer is Government. The Tamana park project was launched in 2005 to much fanfare and during the launch, this park was touted as having the potential to have between 15,000 and 25,000 people working there within the next five years (from the date of the launch).

The Intech Park was expected to be an industrial, green environment which will include non-energy based light manufacturing industries and to host the main campus of the University of TT (UTT) with the university acting as the centre of research and practical integration.

Now, it faces a shortage of money to complete it. According to Browne, Tamana requires a substantial investment which government does not have at present.

With Tamana facing a lack of funding, the fear is that other parks across the country could feel the pinch and might have to be scaled down as well.

Parks are located at Frederick Settlement, Endeavour Road, Chaguanas, Debe, Point Fortin, Reform Village and Dow Village, California. Browne said while government was at this time not abandoning the technology park, the project was being scaled down to make it more manageable. Browne was unable to say how much the project will be reduced by or the final cost nor was he able to give a time line for completion.

“The time lime has changed,” was all he would say on the project’s completion. The budgeted cost of the Etech’s industrial projects has ballooned from $370 million to $821 million.

Yesterday at the forum reporters were given booklets and brochures, in full colour, on the Tamana park but there was no indication that the project was being revisited or scaled down. Browne, who is also Minister in the Ministry of Finance, who was also asked about the slippage in international reserves, said that with commodity prices rising this could soon change.

In his address, Browne insisted that with US$8.6 billion in foreign exchange reserves or 11 months of import cover, this country was on solid financial ground.