Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

The High­way Re-route Move­ment has start­ed print­ing 40,000 pam­phlets, as ac­tivists led by Dr Wayne Kublals­ingh sped up their ed­u­ca­tion­al cam­paign to stop Phase Two of the $7.2 bil­lion Point Fortin High­way. The cam­paign comes at a time when the Move­ment is be­ing ac­cused of cost­ing the Gov­ern­ment a fur­ther $3.5 mil­lion for de­lays in the con­struc­tion of the high­way by Brazil­ian firm Con­struc­tura OAS Lim­it­ed.

Kublals­ingh, who has al­ready dis­tanced him­self from the mount­ing con­struc­tion costs, said his group would con­tin­ue their ed­u­ca­tion­al dri­ve in a bid to get the cit­i­zen­ry to un­der­stand the dan­gers of the sec­ond Phase, which runs from Debe to Mon De­sir. Kublals­ingh said ac­tivists will al­so com­plete con­struc­tion of a protest camp to­day at Ghan­di Vil­lage, in the di­rect route of the high­way.

This camp is ex­pect­ed to be built on pri­vate lands be­long­ing to ac­tivist Eliz­a­beth Ramb­harose. Kublals­ingh said: "The new camp will be fin­ished by to­mor­row (to­day) and we will con­tin­ue to dis­sem­i­nate in­for­ma­tion." He not­ed that ac­tivists will con­tin­ue to vis­it the Hall of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain and dis­trib­ute most of the pam­phlets.

Mean­while, se­nior coun­sel Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj is ex­pect­ed to file le­gal ac­tion this week to stop the high­way. Ma­haraj, at a press con­fer­ence last week, said he planned to sue in­di­vid­ual min­is­ters, the Gov­ern­ment and army of­fi­cers who took in­struc­tions from Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er. Ma­haraj said he al­so plans to file an in­junc­tion to stop Phase Two of the high­way.

Ma­haraj said no gov­ern­ment min­is­ter has the pow­er un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion and laws of Trinidad and To­ba­go to give di­rec­tives to the po­lice and army, adding "the po­lice have to take in­struc­tions from the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and the Com­man­der of the De­fence Force who is re­spon­si­ble for the army."

Mean­while, work con­tin­ued apace yes­ter­day by the OAS con­trac­tors. Truck­loads of dirt were be­ing re­moved by trucks at the Gol­con­da In­ter­change, while ex­ca­va­tion con­tin­ued at the side of the M2 Ring Road. There were no sol­diers at the site, but two uni­formed po­lice of­fi­cers su­per­vised the op­er­a­tions.