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  • 5 hours ago
Faced with an eviction notice, and unable to secure a meeting with the Urban Development Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago, there is now a call for the intervention of Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and, or Minister of Works and Infrastructure Jearlean John.

It is coming from the Friends of the Breakfast Shed headed by Robert Le Hunte on behalf of the vendors.

Alicia Boucher has the details.
Transcript
00:00Several calls have been made to the Urban Development Corporation in a bid to discuss a list of issues.
00:06They include the following, rent payments owed by the vendors to Uticot,
00:10monies allegedly owed to the breakfast shed by way of a $2.6 million electricity overpayment
00:17due to the wrong classification by Uticot,
00:19and monies said to be owed to the vendors under the original breakfast shed relocation agreement.
00:25As vendors have been given until the end of April to vacate the premises,
00:28Chairman of Friends of the Breakfast Shed Robert Lee Hunt indicates that all requests for a meeting have fallen on
00:35deaf ears.
00:36The vendors are therefore respectfully asking that the notice to quit be rescinded
00:42so that meaningful dialogue can take place.
00:49We are also respectfully calling on the Honourable Jolene John,
00:53Minister with Responsibility for Uticot, to intervene
00:57so that a fair and constructive resolution can be achieved.
01:02Lee Hunt states that the vendors have been unjustly treated in a number of ways,
01:07including having to pay rent while the establishment was closed during the COVID-19 pandemic
01:11and having part of their space taken during the Carnival period
01:15for the hosting of the Hyatt Lime Fet while not receiving a cent from that event.
01:20He is unsettled by reasons he claims Uticot is stating for not meeting with them.
01:25We have gotten fibrillous reasons.
01:27Well, if you are looking at a matter of legal action, of money owed since 2005,
01:36we can't talk to you.
01:38Legal representative for the vendors' attorney at law, Kenneth Monroe Brown,
01:42states that upon Uticot's request, he wrote to them on behalf of the vendors.
01:46And what did they do? They never responded. Never responded.
01:52Instead, they decided, well, hey, notice to quit.
01:57So that's like retaliation. How dare you?
02:01Apart from seeking an intervention from Minister John, Monroe Brown makes another appeal.
02:06But we're calling on them publicly to sit with us or have your operatives at Uticot sit with us.
02:14Or we're calling on the prime minister to direct them to sit with us.
02:19They also expect a ruling from the Regulated Industries Commission by the end of March
02:24concerning the overpayment in electricity.
02:26According to Lee Hunt, the money owed by the state to the vendors
02:30is a lot more than what the vendors are owing to the state.
02:33He says rectifying the situation hinges on history, fairness and dialogue.
02:38Alicia Boucher, TV6 News.
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