Res­i­dents of Bam­boo No. 2, Val­sayn, can now breathe a sigh of re­lief af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­ced­ed to their re­quest for a pave­ment. She al­so promised to grant two acres of land to the Bam­boo Masjid. Per­sad-Bisses­sar made the an­nounce­ments on Tues­day night at a din­ner host­ed by the Mus­lim So­cial and Cul­tur­al Foun­da­tion at 61 Bam­boo Main Road, Bam­boo No. 2. Tues­day was the sec­ond day of fast­ing for Mus­lims who are ob­serv­ing the holy month of Ra­madan.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "A Cab­i­net note has been pre­pared to grant ap­prox­i­mate­ly two acres of land ad­join­ing the Bam­boo Masjid...two acres of land...for use of a car park and to put up a struc­ture. "This ap­pli­ca­tion was be­fore the Gov­ern­ment for over ten years and to­day I com­mit that my Gov­ern­ment will make it hap­pen." The Prime Min­is­ter al­so de­liv­ered Ra­madan greet­ings to the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty. She vowed to re­scind the lease of the fish­ing ponds in the area to make way for "a long-await­ed pave­ment."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the lease of the area cur­rent­ly hous­ing sev­er­al fish­ing ponds which have been un­der­utilised for many years have been re­scind­ed...what that means...end­ed. "And now, that will be the sub­ject to pub­lic ad­ver­tise­ments in the com­ing weeks, which means that a long-await­ed pave­ment for the peo­ple of Bam­boo will short­ly be­come a re­al­i­ty." Al­so in at­ten­dance and de­liv­er­ing re­marks were sev­er­al Cab­i­net min­is­ters such as Food Pro­duc­tion Min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath; So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Dr Glen Ra­mad­hars­ingh; Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Chan­dresh Shar­ma; Trans­port Min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj; Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Col­in Par­tap and Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Rodger Samuel.

Com­mu­ni­ty ac­tivist In­shan Ish­mael in an in­ter­view yes­ter­day said the mosque's con­gre­ga­tion was grow­ing and the land was not enough to fa­cil­i­tate the growth. Ish­mael said: "For years we had ap­proached every sin­gle Gov­ern­ment but it was nev­er treat­ed as an is­sue." He said the prime min­is­ter saw the need for more land space to cater for the needs of the mosque. He al­so praised Bharath whom he said vis­it­ed the area the first week he came in­to of­fice last year and gave as­sur­ance to ad­dress the mat­ter of land and pave­ment. "It re­al­ly is a dream come true for me and the peo­ple of the area.

"It is al­so the first time a prime min­is­ter has vis­it­ed us," Ish­mael said.