Kali­fa Clyne

One day af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced the date for Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions, Ch­agua­nas res­i­dents in­ter­viewed by the Sun­day Guardian said they were ready to vote.

The res­i­dents al­so agreed, how­ev­er, that they felt Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions were use­less as coun­cil­lors still had no pow­er with­out MPs.

Most res­i­dents al­so said they nev­er saw their coun­cil­lors and did not see any im­prove­ments to their com­mu­ni­ty.

Still, they are ready to vote, and their vot­ing will be based on par­ty pol­i­tics rather than the de­vel­op­ment of their com­mu­ni­ties.

Zena Mack, a res­i­dent of Ram­goolie Trace, Chin Chin, Cunu­pia, said she would def­i­nite­ly be vot­ing on No­vem­ber 28.

Asked why, Mack said it was be­cause it was ex­pect­ed.

Asked if she knew her coun­cil­lor's name, Mack, like many oth­er res­i­dents, said no.

Asked what Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, in Mack's case the Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion, had done for her re­cent­ly, Mack's an­swer was noth­ing.

Her prop­er­ty is well-kept, grass cut low, walk­way swept clean, chores done by her son.

The makeshift drainage lead­ing from her prop­er­ty to a main road was cre­at­ed by fam­i­ly mem­bers.

"We do every­thing for our­selves. I don't even think hav­ing Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment coun­cil­lors makes sense for most peo­ple be­cause I nev­er see them. I don't know who they are," Mack said.

While her prop­er­ty is well-kept, free of lit­ter and stag­nant wa­ter ide­al for mos­qui­to breed­ing, Mack can't en­joy the ben­e­fits.

Next door to her house is an aban­doned lot.

"I want to say it is aban­doned but peo­ple built a foun­da­tion the oth­er day and then didn't come back for three months."

In those three months, the lot has flood­ed, tak­ing on a swamp-like look, com­plete with caimans, ro­dents and a breed­ing ground for mos­qui­toes.

From Mack's point of view, the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion should be en­forc­ing laws to en­sure res­i­dents of the bor­ough are not faced with these dan­gers.

What the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions should be do­ing and what is done, how­ev­er, is vast­ly dif­fer­ent.

Bish­nu Ra­goonath: Peo­ple

vote par­ty not com­mu­ni­ty

In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath agreed that the ma­jor­i­ty of vot­ers in the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions vote based on par­ty pol­i­tics.

"It is un­for­tu­nate but that is how our pol­i­tics evolved. It has evolved in a way where we fo­cus more about par­ty pol­i­tics and not com­mu­ni­ty is­sues," Ra­goonath said.

He said in this way, Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions were no dif­fer­ent from the gen­er­al elec­tions.

He agreed, in the­o­ry, that Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions should rep­re­sent an op­por­tu­ni­ty to choose can­di­dates based on their abil­i­ty to make com­mu­ni­ty im­prove­ments but said this was not the re­al­i­ty.

Ch­agua­nas unique

In Ch­agua­nas, un­like many oth­er re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions, the votes are spread among three po­lit­i­cal par­ties, the rul­ing Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), the Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), and the In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty (ILP) start­ed by for­mer Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter, cur­rent­ly fac­ing crim­i­nal charges, Jack Warn­er.

In the last elec­tions, the PNM won three elec­toral dis­tricts, Ed­in­burgh/Long­denville, En­ter­prise North/Es­mer­al­da and En­ter­prise South.

The UNC al­so won three dis­tricts, Fe­lic­i­ty/En­deav­our, Mon­trose and Cunu­pia, while the ILP took Munroe Road/Ca­roni Sa­van­nah and Char­lieville.

De­spite the tie be­tween the UNC and the PNM, it is the UNC that con­trols the bor­ough cor­po­ra­tion and its re­sources, af­ter an ILP can­di­date crossed the floor.

It is al­so the UNC-held ar­eas that seem, on the sur­face, to ben­e­fit the most.

While res­i­dents in Chrissie Trace in En­ter­prise some­times do their own com­mu­ni­ty up­keep, each cut­ting the grass on the side­walks out­side their house, res­i­dents in Lange Park saw a new pave­ment and walk­ing track along La Clave road.

While an­oth­er green space was giv­en lights in Mon­trose, res­i­dents say they had to pool to­geth­er and fix a four-foot wide pot­hole in Long­denville.

Res­i­dents on Ra­goo­nanan Trace must walk a few hun­dred me­tres to place garbage in a dump, while res­i­dents of Ed­in­burgh 500 have their garbage picked up in front of their gate.

It seems no one elec­toral dis­trict has every­thing they need and no res­i­dent is com­plete­ly sat­is­fied with their rep­re­sen­ta­tives, even when work is be­ing done.

Kei­th Samp­son, of Wel­come Road, near Es­mer­al­da, has no in­ten­tion of vot­ing for any­one.

"I see what they do. Look," he points.

"You see we are get­ting the road re­paired. You see the drain there, we got the drain up­grad­ed late last year. I think they are do­ing a good job with that.

"But I don't want to vote. I'm just not in­ter­est­ed."

Samp­son's an­swer is para­dox­i­cal but typ­i­cal of many Ch­agua­nas bor­ough res­i­dents.

Ei­ther they see no im­prove­ments and are still will­ing to vote or they are see­ing a lot of im­prove­ments and are ap­a­thet­ic about Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions.

Ch­agua­nas may­or:

We dis­trib­ute equal­ly

In an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Ch­agua­nas May­or Gopaul Bood­han said there was no dis­crim­i­na­tion in terms of de­vel­op­ment in the bor­ough.

"Every bud­getary year, the mon­ey is shared equal­ly be­tween every sin­gle coun­cil­lor re­gard­less of par­ty they be­long to. Our pol­i­cy is equal dis­tri­b­u­tion on roads, drains, the mar­ket, and all de­vel­op­ment projects," Bood­han said.

De­spite this, Bood­han is aware of the chal­lenges faced by bor­ough res­i­dents: frus­trat­ing­ly poor traf­fic man­age­ment ex­ac­er­bat­ed by frus­trat­ed and in­con­sid­er­ate dri­vers, pot­holes which al­ways crop up in the same place de­spite sev­er­al quick fix­es, and in some ar­eas bad­ly in­con­sis­tent garbage col­lec­tion.

Some of these is­sues were cre­at­ed be­cause of Ch­agua­nas' his­to­ry of of­ten un­planned de­vel­op­ment, re­sult­ing in streets too nar­row for some ve­hi­cles to nav­i­gate, a high num­ber of un­paved roads and streets that all merge, me­an­der and con­front each oth­er in an un­re­strict­ed maze.

"We start­ed to have small­er trucks and small­er ve­hi­cles go­ing in­to the area. We are con­scious of the fact that when peo­ple leave all the garbage in one area, stray dogs tear it apart and it be­comes a haz­ard," Bood­han said.

He said the bor­ough al­so start­ed an ag­gres­sive beau­ti­fi­ca­tion and en­vi­ron­men­tal project.

The bor­ough al­so reg­u­lar­ly cel­e­brates ed­u­ca­tion­al achieve­ments, with 27 SEA stu­dents from pri­ma­ry schools in the bor­ough plac­ing in the top 200 this year, and over 50 schol­ar­ship win­ners ei­ther at­tend­ing school in the bor­ough or liv­ing there.

Safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty is still a chal­lenge in the area. Re­peat­ed calls for a po­lice post in the En­ter­prise com­mu­ni­ty have not yet been an­swered.

"All in all, in all ar­eas of life, we have done work in all ar­eas," Bood­han said.

He said the fact that peo­ple com­plained of not see­ing their coun­cil­lors was a his­tor­i­cal com­plaint but added that all coun­cil­lors from the cor­po­ra­tion con­tin­ued to work as hard as pos­si­ble.

"I apol­o­gise if peo­ple are not see­ing them but I en­cour­age them to call us. You don't need an ap­point­ment to see me at the cor­po­ra­tion. Peo­ple can call and I will vis­it," he said.

Bood­han en­cour­aged the Sun­day Guardian to share his mo­bile num­ber 779-7343.