Yvonne Webb

"We feel be­trayed by this gov­ern­ment," mem­bers of the Debe/Point Fortin High­way Ac­tion Com­mit­tee said on Thurs­day as they were in­formed by the Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (Nid­co) that two years af­ter they agreed to give up their prop­er­ties for the high­way con­struc­tion, they were no longer en­ti­tled to com­pen­sa­tion.

The in­for­ma­tion cre­at­ed an up­roar as dozens of af­fect­ed res­i­dents of St Mary's Vil­lage, Oropouche, con­verged on Nid­co build­ing, Debe, de­mand­ing an­swers to re­ports that the width of the high­way is to be re­duced, mak­ing their re­lo­ca­tion and com­pen­sa­tion re­dun­dant.

Oth­ers, whose homes stand in the path­way of the high­way and who will be re­quired to move claim the orig­i­nal of­fer has sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duced.

The res­i­dents said they would be con­sult­ing with their at­tor­ney on Tues­day to ex­plore their op­tions af­ter gov­ern­ment re­neged on its two-year-old promise to com­pen­sate them. They con­front­ed Mervyn Thomp­son, Nid­co's val­u­a­tion con­sul­ta­tion who in­curred their wrath as he con­firmed there would be no re­lo­ca­tion or com­pen­sa­tion.

They al­so con­front­ed Eward Mood­ie, pres­i­dent of the Debe/Point Fortin Ac­tion Com­mit­tee and con­sul­tant with Nid­co, al­so an ad­vo­cate for the high­way, who en­cour­aged res­i­dents to ac­cept the of­fer of re­lo­ca­tion and com­pen­sa­tion. Mood­ie said he would meet with Works Min­is­ter Eman­nuel George to dis­cuss the is­sue of shrink­age of the size of the high­way and de­ci­sion not to com­pen­sate the res­i­dents.

Ram­bachan Sookhai, who has been liv­ing at Oropouche for the past 52 years, said he has been in­formed the project had run in­to fi­nan­cial prob­lems and the width of the high­way in the vicin­i­ty of his home, had been re­duced from 100 me­tres to 60 me­tres.He said be­cause of that, the Gov­ern­ment no longer re­quired the prop­er­ty of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 65 house­holds to build the high­way.

"The ho­n­ourable prime min­is­ter said she was go­ing to build a 100-me­tre high­way and we would get fair com­pen­sa­tion. I want her to keep her promise and not treat us like sec­ond class cit­i­zens," Sookhai said.Gur­ley See­jat­tan-Balka­ran said for­mer works min­is­ter Jack Warn­er stood on a pub­lic plat­form and in­formed the res­i­dents, many of whom are squat­ters, they would be re­lo­cat­ed, giv­en a lot of land and a fair com­pen­sa­tion for their hous­es.

See­jat­tan-Balka­ran said res­i­dents agreed to the pro­pos­al and start­ed prepar­ing for their re­lo­ca­tion.She said she too, has in­curred­sub­stan­tial loss­es as she had to stop op­er­a­tion of her saw mill, up­on the re­quest by the Gov­ern­ment for 7.1 of her 11 acres of pri­vate land she owns in South Oropouche, for the high­way­con­struc­tion.