Maracas vendors to get booths for Carnival

Booths being constructed at Maracas Beach by the Ministry of Works will be completed and handed over to vendors in time for the Carnival weekend. This is the assurance given by Works and Transport Minister Rohan Sinanan.

The Maracas Beach facilities improvement project is a three-phase project which includes a car park, already completed and handed over to the Ministry of Tourism, and permanent booths for the popular bake and shark delicacy and other foods, beachwear and souvenir and craft vendors.

When Newsday visited Maracas Beach last week, vendors were concerned that the booths would not be ready by Carnival.

“One of the things we are comfortable with is that with all the rain that fell over the Christmas and the New Year holidays, for the first time in over 25 years Maracas Beach did not flood,” Sinanan said. “The car park area did not flood.”

That, he said, was because: “We have completed the retention ponds and installed pumps.”

The sewage plant phase of the project, he said, is ongoing and will not be completed in time for Carnival, but the contractors have refurbished the old sewage plant and it was working.

“The sewage plant will be completed later this year, when there will be a transition from the old one to the new.”