Kali­fa Clyne

It will take ap­prox­i­mate­ly three weeks for the plas­ter on the Lapey­rouse Ceme­tery wall on Tra­garete Road to be re­moved. Port-of-Spain May­or Louis Lee Sing said af­ter the city cor­po­ra­tion's month­ly statu­to­ry meet­ing on Thurs­day, that he was await­ing in­for­ma­tion from con­trac­tors on the cost and the length of time it would take to com­plete­ly re­move the plas­ter put there last week by a crew of ma­sons.

Lee Sing said up to Thurs­day the CEO of the city cor­po­ra­tion, Winifred David, had not giv­en him the name of the per­son re­spon­si­ble. David did not at­tend the statu­to­ry meet­ing. "In a re­port giv­en by the CEO I was told that this was an en­gi­neer­ing de­ci­sion, but I would need to be ad­vised as to who was the en­gi­neer who made the de­ci­sion," Lee Sing said.

He said in the mean­time he would con­tin­ue to chip away at the plas­ter­ing un­til the wall is re­stored. The Lapey­rouse wall is not the on­ly con­tention be­tween the coun­cil mem­bers and city ad­min­is­tra­tion. Lee Sing al­so laid blame for sev­er­al oth­er is­sues on ad­min­is­tra­tion and point­ed to the need for pub­lic-ser­vice re­form.

He said that the CEO could not be in­struct­ed by the coun­cil, as the coun­cil could on­ly make re­quests and rec­om­men­da­tions. "It's al­most as if we are con­stant­ly on our hands and knees. The CEO re­ports to the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment. Her ap­praisals are done by some­one who does not see what is hap­pen­ing in Port-of-Spain."

David has not re­spond­ed to an e-mail sent to her by the T&T?Guardian on Thurs­day. Lee Sing said his cor­po­ra­tion had re­ceived $2 mil­lion from the Min­istry of Fi­nance to start re­mov­ing 87 out of a to­tal of 3,000 la­trine pits in the cap­i­tal city and in­stalling prop­er­ly func­tion­ing toi­lets in east Port-of-Spain.

"De­spite the ef­forts of the coun­cil, the ad­min­is­tra­tion dragged its feet, so that when it fi­nal­ly got to the Cen­tral Ten­ders Board, no­body ap­plied to do the work," Lee Sing said. Lee Sing said the project now need­ed to be restart­ed and added that the city had not re­ceived fund­ing for an ad­di­tion­al 87 la­trine pits.

"The CEO of the cor­po­ra­tion and her team do not un­der­stand the cries and con­cerns of the peo­ple of Port-of-Spain," Lee Sing said. He said he want­ed the la­trine pits to go so res­i­dents could live in more hy­gien­ic con­di­tions. "If there were to be a cholera out­break in the coun­try, with all these ro­dents and la­trine pits and street dwellers, it would spread quick­ly. These ro­dents in the city are huge. They have a choice be­tween dou­bles, souse, jerk chick­en and aloo pie."

Lee Sing said street ven­dors pose an­oth­er prob­lem.