Farm­ers in Tabaquite and Broth­ers, Road, Williamsville, are to ben­e­fit when 13 agri­cul­tur­al ac­cess roads are re­ha­bil­i­tat­ed.This is ac­cord­ing to MP for Tabaquite and For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Su­ru­jrat­tan Ram­bachan, who met with about 75 res­i­dents on East­er Sun­day.Ram­bachan said he was pre­sent­ed with a let­ter out­lin­ing their con­cerns.He said the Tor­rib/Tabaquite and St John's roads would be repaved to­day.Agri­cul­tur­al ac­cess roads Pasqual Road, Piper Trace, Ram­lochan Trace, Arch Trace and Piper Branch Trace would be re­ha­bil­i­tat­ed at the end of next month, he added.

Ram­bachan said the Ac­cess Road Pro­gramme in­volved 125 acres of agri­cul­tur­al lands and 47 farm­ers oc­cu­py­ing those lands would ben­e­fit.He said dredg­ing of the main riv­er in the area had al­ready start­ed.He said this would al­le­vi­ate flood­ing in the area."Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 60 farm­ers and 180 acres of pro­duc­tive lands will ben­e­fit," Ram­bachan said."Tabaquite pro­duces up to 750,000 head of cab­bage per year and can sub­stan­tial­ly in­crease this amount with the dredg­ing...In ad­di­tion, toma­to crops are go­ing to be pro­tect­ed."

The ac­cess road re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion is part of a na­tion­al $750 mil­lion pro­gramme, which in­volves the hir­ing of 91 con­trac­tors by the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port.It is es­ti­mat­ed that $32 mil­lion would be spent in Tabaquite.Un­der the pro­gramme, roads will be paved, drains will be cleared and box drains will be built.Speak­ing at a news con­fer­ence ear­li­er this month, Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er said checks and bal­ances had been put in place to en­sure there is no sub-stan­dard work.He said of­fi­cers and en­gi­neers would en­sure works were mon­i­tored and roads were in­spect­ed up­on com­ple­tion.Warn­er said work would be done in 39 con­stituen­cies.