Deputy Mayor of Port-of-Spain, Keron Valentine's declaration that the Woodbrook Fire Station could not respond to a fire at a nearby business place, was as instructive as it was an indictment on the PNM controlled borough. Further to this, Mr Leo Ramkissoon of the Fire Services Association stated that other areas like Carenage and Diego Martin were also without fire appliances.
It really makes me wonder what PNM MPs are doing in their constituencies. The Port-of-Spain Corporation has always been a bastion of the PNM, in and out of government. All areas of the west of Trinidad have always been controlled by the PNM, in and out of government. How is that today, that they now come forward to say that Woodbrook does not have a fire service, that Carenage does not have a health centre and must depend on the People's Partnership Government to build one? That Point Fortin has been waiting for God knows how many years for a hospital?
What have these boroughs been doing? I recall that it was former mayor Louis Lee Sing's big plan to see latrines eradicated from Port-of-Spain, to see glass bottles outlawed and to see Lapeyrouse Cemetery become a tourist attraction. Were these the matters they gave priority? You mean to tell me that the absence of a fire truck missed so many borough executives?
It never ceases to amaze me how the PNM hides the nakedness of their own neglect and lack of representation behind a fig leaf of People's Partnership neglect. I am sure that it is not today that the Woodbrook Fire Station is not operational. Has the Borough Corporation made any representation to past and present governments for a fire service? Is this another case of the Mayaro Fire Station, which was promised so long ago, and not delivered until the time of Winston Peters?
Now the PNM is dreaming about their new term in government, why not say to the nation, that immediately upon assumption of office, a PNM government will start to build fire stations and send fire appliances to bucket brigade communities. God bless this nation.
Lystra Marajh
Glencoe