Richard?Lord

In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor Dr James Arm­strong says his work is not to stop the Solomon Ho­choy High­way ex­ten­sion project or rec­om­mend that it be con­tin­ued, but to en­sure the pop­u­la­tion be­comes ful­ly aware of all the facts. Arm­strong is chair­man of the com­mit­tee be­ing set up by the Joint Con­sul­ta­tive Coun­cil and oth­er groups to re­view the Debe to Mon De­sir seg­ment of the high­way.

He spoke in an in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day, even be­fore the oth­er mem­bers were ap­point­ed or the com­mit­tee's terms of ref­er­ence were re­leased.

The ap­point­ment of the com­mit­tee was one of the ma­jor de­ci­sions tak­en dur­ing lengthy talks at the Works Min­istry in Port-of-Spain. The Gov­ern­ment team in­clud­ed Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Em­manuel George, En­vi­ron­ment and Wa­ter Re­sources Min­is­ter Gan­ga Singh and pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (Nid­co) Dr Car­son Charles.

They ne­go­ti­at­ed with the JCC, the T&T Trans­paren­cy In­sti­tute, the Fed­er­a­tion of In­de­pen­dent Trade Unions and NGOs (Fi­tun) and Work­ing­Women. Arm­strong said many cit­i­zens were not now aware of all the facts of the project.

Asked if re-rout­ing the high­way was an op­tion, Arm­strong said he could not say, and de­tails of his com­mit­tee's work could on­ly be giv­en af­ter the terms of ref­er­ence were known. He said based on his in­for­ma­tion, the two-month pe­ri­od was tight, but he re­mained com­mit­ted to do all he and the com­mit­tee could to en­sure a prop­er re­port was sub­mit­ted in the time giv­en.

Arm­strong said he did not com­ment on the protest mount­ed by Dr Wayne Kublals­ingh, who com­plet­ed the 20th day of his hunger strike yes­ter­day, be­cause he was ex­pect­ed to chair the com­mit­tee. He said the con­cerns of Kublal­sh­ingh should be con­sid­ered. He said he was told no work was tak­ing place on the con­tro­ver­sial seg­ment of the high­way, and it would be prop­er if no work was done on that sec­tion while the com­mit­tee was do­ing its re­view.