SHAS­TRI BOODAN

Res­i­dents of En­ter­prise will soon be able to get faster ac­cess to Ch­agua­nas and sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties such as Lange Park, Or­chard Gar­dens and En­deav­our. This should hap­pen by Christ­mas when the Gov­ern­ment com­pletes a $6.5 mil­lion road re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion project at Crown Trace in En­ter­prise. Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er, Ch­agua­nas East MP Stephen Cadiz and Ch­agua­nas may­or Or­lan­do Nages­sar, turned the sod in the heavy rain to start the project on Wednes­day. The six-month project will in­volve the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of 1.8 km of roads, side­walks and drains. Warn­er urged res­i­dents to en­sure that the roads were main­tained and asked them to re­port any de­te­ri­o­ra­tion to the Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion to en­sure that the ameni­ties do not fall in­to dis­re­pair.

He said his min­istry fix­es 80 per cent of the roads that fall un­der the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the Min­istry of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment. He al­so an­nounced that work on the Debe-Mon De­sir leg of the Point Fortin High­way has been stopped for three months while his min­istry looks at the ob­jec­tions of some res­i­dents. Warn­er said the high­way will con­tin­ue from Gol­con­da to Debe and from Siparia to Mon De­sir. He said works be­tween Debe and Mon De­sir have been put on hold for three months af­ter protest ac­tion from res­i­dents of the area. He said he was shocked at the treat­ment he got from pro­test­ers when he met with them on Sat­ur­day at a con­sul­ta­tion on the project.

Warn­er said he nev­er ex­pect­ed such harsh crit­i­cism from the res­i­dents and was hop­ing for mean­ing­ful di­a­logue and not un­to­ward be­hav­iour. Nages­sar thanked the peo­ple of En­ter­prise for demon­strat­ing a high lev­el of co-op­er­a­tion and pa­tience with the Gov­ern­ment to de­liv­er. He said the En­ter­prise com­mu­ni­ty showed a high lev­el of ma­tu­ri­ty since they re­frained from burn­ing tyres and demon­strat­ing. Cadiz said more im­prove­ments are yet to come for Ch­agua­nas East. He said a com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre at Africa Ground would soon be opened as well as a new­ly-con­struct­ed En­ter­prise Gov­ern­ment School in the new term in Sep­tem­ber. Cadiz said three recre­ation grounds in Ch­agua­nas East would al­so be re­fur­bished.