Three-month wait for US Embassy approval ‘unacceptable’

The US Em­bassy had to wait three months, be­tween May and Au­gust 2025, to get a san­i­tary de­ter­mi­na­tion to erect tem­po­rary liv­ing quar­ters for the work­force con­struct­ing its new fa­cil­i­ty, ac­cord­ing to Plan­ning Min­is­ter Kennedy Swarats­ingh yes­ter­day.

"The rep­u­ta­tion­al cost to TT as an in­vest­ment de­ter­mi­na­tion of a three-month wait for a du­pli­cat­ed san­i­tary re­view is un­ac­cept­able," Swarats­ingh added dur­ing yes­ter­day's Sen­ate de­bate on the Pub­lic Health (Amend­ment) (No. 2) Bill, 2026.

The bill was passed with Sen­a­tors' unan­i­mous sup­port. The bill was passed in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives last week. It will re­move du­pli­ca­tion of ap­provals in the con­struc­tion process which caus­es de­lays. It re­moves the stage for the Coun­ty Med­ical Of­fi­cer of Health's (CMOH) in­put from the build­ing per­mits process.