SHAS­TRI BOODAN

May­or Or­lan­do Nages­sar has said that 260 cas­es of dengue have been re­port­ed in Cen­tral Trinidad in re­cent times. He was speak­ing with the me­dia on Mon­day af­ter the month­ly statu­to­ry meet­ing of the Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion at the old bor­ough hall on Cum­ber­batch Street.

The ar­eas in which the mos­qui­to-borne dis­ease was re­port­ed in­clude Long­denville, Ed­in­burgh 500, Mon­trose, Lange Park and Cunu­pia. The may­or said spray­ing was sched­uled to start yes­ter­day with an ed­u­ca­tion pro­gramme on dengue pre­ven­tion.

Nages­sar said he be­lieves that the health au­thor­i­ties should en­gage in aer­i­al spray­ing to con­trol the mos­qui­to pop­u­la­tion in aban­doned lands, es­pe­cial­ly cane­fields that were un­der the con­trol of Ca­roni (1975) Ltd, and that a new in­sec­ti­cide needs to be used, since the mos­qui­to pop­u­la­tion may have grown im­mune to the chem­i­cals be­ing used at present.

Nages­sar al­so said a con­trac­tor who un­der­took work at Ed­in­burgh Gar­dens Recre­ation Ground would not be paid un­til it is up to stan­dard, es­pe­cial­ly since the area is used by the Blind Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion. He said a con­trac­tor on the same ground in­stalled lights with­out shades and the bor­ough's pa­tience was run­ning thin with shod­dy work.

Deputy May­or Gopaul Bood­han said the bor­ough needs ad­di­tion­al lit­ter war­dens to pa­trol ar­eas which were il­le­gal­ly used as dump­ing grounds for garbage in Cunu­pia, En­deav­our and En­ter­prise. Bood­han al­so knocked the res­i­dents of Lange Park who dis­card tree cut­tings on the side of the road.

He said lit­ter war­dens are need­ed to in­form the res­i­dents of Lange Park about their il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties. Bood­han said the bor­ough suf­fers from a man­age­ment prob­lem and the CEO must take the blame. Nages­sar was told at the meet­ing that the ve­hi­cle used by the lit­ter war­dens to mon­i­tor the bor­ough was un­avail­able at times be­cause bor­ough work­ers used it to run er­rands and buy dou­bles. Ther may­or said it was the first time he had heard this and promised to en­sure it would nev­er hap­pen again.