Kali­fa Clyne

A High Court judge has grant­ed an ex-parte in­junc­tion to the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion pre­vent­ing busi­ness­man John­ny Quan (John­ny Q) from fur­ther ex­ca­va­tion on lands at Au­gus­tine Lane, Bel­mont. The or­der was made on Tues­day night at the Hall of Jus­tice, Port-of-Spain. This was re­vealed by Port-of-Spain may­or Louis Lee Sing yes­ter­day fol­low­ing a meet­ing with res­i­dents of the area. In a brief meet­ing with re­porters at City Hall, Lee Sing said at­tempts to have work stop on Tues­day were un­suc­cess­ful, re­sult­ing in the cor­po­ra­tion seek­ing an in­junc­tion through its at­tor­neys John Je­re­mie SC and Ker­wyn Gar­cia. Lee Sing said en­gi­neers from the cor­po­ra­tion and the Min­istry of Works were busy as­sess­ing the sit­u­a­tion to en­sure the re­turn of nor­mal­cy to the area.

Al­though Lee Sing had no of­fi­cial fig­ures, he es­ti­mat­ed that the to­tal cost of the project would be no less than $15 mil­lion. He said the Min­istry of Works would be the lead part­ner in terms of fi­nanc­ing and restora­tion. Lee Sing said, based on the fact that Quan had been giv­en sev­er­al in­di­ca­tions to stop work, the cor­po­ra­tion was pre­pared to seek re­dress from the busi­ness­man. "The Trea­sury can­not af­ford to pay for the re­sults of peo­ple flout­ing the laws," said Lee Sing. He hoped there was avail­able funds avail­able to the busi­ness­man. Pre­clud­ing the me­dia brief­ing with Lee SIng, the may­or and a team of tech­ni­cians met with res­i­dents to dis­cuss the de­bil­i­tat­ing road con­di­tion. Res­i­dent Joey Dip­nar­ine said they had been as­sured by the may­or that re­pair and restora­tion plans were in progress and would be­gin soon. He said he had not had been giv­en a spe­cif­ic time­frame.

Res­i­dents said they were sat­is­fied with what they had heard and were pre­pared to wait and see what hap­pened with the cor­po­ra­tion. "What we are say­ing is that the land is un­sta­ble right now and any­thing can hap­pen but we are hop­ing and pray­ing every­thing stays sta­bilised," said one res­i­dent. Pe­ter Sylvester whose house, res­i­dents say, was in im­me­di­ate dan­ger due to cracks in the road and land slip­page hoped some­thing could be done im­me­di­ate­ly as his house was al­most at the point of col­lapse. "I am very, very scared of go­ing home and not see­ing a house there," said Sylvester. Busi­ness­man John­ny Quan was seen leav­ing City Hall short­ly af­ter the meet­ing. When asked by re­porters about his re­sponse to the sit­u­a­tion, Quan said: "No com­ment."