Kevon Felmine

The Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ), which is part of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship (PP) Gov­ern­ment, has thrown its sup­port be­hind op­po­nents of the pro­posed con­struc­tion of the Debe to Mon De­sir por­tion of the San Fer­nan­do to Point Fortin High­way. In a press con­fer­ence yes­ter­day at the MSJ's of­fice at South­ern Main Road, Mara­bel­la, po­lit­i­cal leader David Ab­du­lah said he will lob­by gov­ern­ment to halt con­struc­tion and have it re­viewed. "We sup­port the idea of the al­ter­na­tive route that is be­ing pro­posed by the High­way Re-route Move­ment. "MSJ is very com­mit­ted to the de­vel­op­ment of the south-west penin­su­la of Point Fortin, the com­mu­ni­ties of La Brea all the way down to Ica­cos and go­ing fur­ther across. But de­vel­op­ment has to be sus­tain­able and we are con­cerned about the im­pact on the com­mu­ni­ties that will be af­fect­ed by this part of the high­way."

He al­so called for a new hos­pi­tal in Point Fortin say­ing that it was im­por­tant to the peo­ple of the south-west­ern penin­su­la.

Al­so present at the meet­ing was en­vi­ron­men­tal­ist Dr Wayne Kublals­ingh and oth­er mem­bers of the High­way Re-route Move­ment. The com­mit­tee main­tains that the con­struc­tion of the high­way through their dis­trict, which is sit­u­at­ed in the Oropouche La­goon, will de­stroy 13 com­mu­ni­ties, prime agri­cul­tur­al lands and cre­ate flood­ing. Ab­du­lah said that strong na­tions are built on strong com­mu­ni­ties and if de­vel­op­ment re­sults in the sig­nif­i­cant dis­lo­ca­tion of com­mu­ni­ties, gov­ern­ment would be un­der­min­ing the foun­da­tions of the na­tion. Ad­mit­ting that de­vel­op­ment some­times caus­es dis­com­fort, he said his par­ty be­lieved the Debe to Mon De­sir sec­tion of the high­way should not be built.

In fact he said the al­ter­na­tive route sug­gest­ed by the High­way Re-route Move­ment was suf­fi­cient to deal with the traf­fic prob­lems in Pe­nal and Debe. "We don't think that it is ab­solute­ly nec­es­sary for that ex­tra four-lane seg­ment to be built. An al­ter­na­tive route can be put in that will ad­dress the traf­fic." Dr Kublals­ingh pre­sent­ed op­tions for re­lo­ca­tion with the use of vi­su­al aids, show­ing that gov­ern­ment would in­cur less cost in mov­ing the pro­posed por­tion of the high­way north of the Oropouche La­goon. He said the area was un­oc­cu­pied and be­longed to Ca­roni, mean­ing that less mon­ey would be spent in re­lo­cat­ing res­i­dents.