Sascha Wil­son

The Debe to Mon De­sir sec­tion of the $7.5 bil­lion high­way to Point Fortin has been put on hold. Steve Garib­s­ingh of Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed, made the dis­clo­sure dur­ing his overview of the high­way project at the Debe High School on Sat­ur­day.

"I must say to you that we have been re­quest­ed by the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture to put a hold on the Debe to Siparia seg­ment for fur­ther ad­di­tion­al stud­ies, which are re­quired to be able to re­spond to the in­quires and con­cerns of the cit­i­zens in the area," Garib­s­ingh said.

Sev­er­al res­i­dents liv­ing in com­mu­ni­ties in the area are re­fus­ing to move and have since put for­ward an al­ter­na­tive route. They have formed them­selves in­to High­way Re-Route Move­ment, led by Dr Wayne Kublals­ingh, and have set up a protest camp in Debe. In an in­ter­view af­ter the meet­ing, Warn­er said from a tech­ni­cal stand­point the re-route did not make sense. He said the ad­van­tages of the high­way out­weighed the dis­ad­van­tages.