Less than an hour after Works and Infrastructure Minister Jack Warner promised to repair deplorable roads in Mayaro, a war of words broke out between Mayaro MP Winston "Gypsy" Peters and some of his constituents at Rio Claro on Sunday night. The confrontation took place at Market Square, where Warner hosted a public meeting to whip up support for his campaign for the post of chairman at Saturday's internal UNC elections.
In his speech, Warner told residents he would deal urgently with the state of the roads. "I want to publicly apologise to you tonight. I travelled from Mayaro to here (Rio Claro) and never in my wildest imagination I could expect to see roads as I've seen here. I have never seen roads so bad. I want to apologise for that," he said.
The minister added: "I cannot understand how WASA could have dug up those roads and leave it so. If even they laid pipes, there was no reason to leave the roads as they have."
While the crowd applauded, Warner addressed Peters, saying: "Tomorrow, Mr Peters, I give you the assurance that I shall deal with that road." However, Peters, in an interview, accused some of the protesters of having a political agenda. He added: "I can only do what I can do. If they want to protest and block the road, let them go ahead. "I am fixing the road and running water for them and the only how they could get that way is if the road is 'dugged' up, so if they want to protest, go ahead. I can't do nothing about that. "I am here every single Tuesday in Biche or Mayaro. If they cannot meet me in Biche, then meet me here," Peters said. Pinpointing the protesters as PNM, Peters said it was not true he was a poor representative. "If I so bad, how they getting water run?" Peters asked. Asked why the Naparima/Mayaro Road and the Guayaguare Main Road were so deplorable, Peters said: "I wonder, if I run the pipe on top of the road and leave it like that, if they will feel I representing them.
"What they mean I am not representing them? The reason why the road is like that is because we are running pipe. Of course we have to dig up the road."
Peters said water pipes had been laid along eight miles of road. He added: "At the time where they start protesting, it is just about a half-mile of road that was really bad. "That was the last piece of road that they were doing. They said in order for them to pave the road, they had to pressure-test the line. "The unfortunate thing about this is that they protest on Tuesday and that was the same day that roadwork was supposed to start."
Some constituents became upset when they heard Peter's statements. One of them, Bunnie Mahabirsingh, a businessman, said: "Fix the road. Stop making excuses." Peters responded: "Why you doh ask the PNM to fix the road?" Mahabirsingh told Peters: "You in power. You is the man who have to fix it." Peters told the protesters to block the road if they wanted to. "Go ahead and block it. All of you is PNM. You didn't vote for me. Go and ask the PNM to fix your road." One of the residents accused Peters of being a "a waste of time." Mahabirsingh was then led away by a relative.