As the third largest cor­po­ra­tion in the coun­try, the Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (PTRC) is now faced with a myr­i­ad of prob­lems—rang­ing from de­plorable roads, lack of wa­ter, land­slips, un­em­ploy­ment, and ris­ing crime.

These is­sues, cou­pled with lack of fund­ing and poor rep­re­sen­ta­tion by some coun­cil­lors al­most three years af­ter the 2016 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tion (LGE), have left burgess­es feel­ing dis­sat­is­fied, ne­glect­ed and hope­less.

Princes Town, which built its econ­o­my on the sug­ar cane in­dus­try, has earned the rep­u­ta­tion as one of South's ma­jor shop­ping towns and a lo­ca­tion for bar­gains.

To­day, the area has tremen­dous po­ten­tial for tourism as there are many at­trac­tions, in­clud­ing the Dev­il's Wood­yard, Triveni Hin­du Tem­ple, Christo­pher Colum­bus' land­ing site and the Moru­ga Spring Bridge.

The cor­po­ra­tion, which spans 620 square miles and serves 103,000 burgess­es, has ten elec­toral dis­tricts—nine of which are con­trolled by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC)—Ben Lomond/Hard­bar­gain and Williamsville, Corinth/Cedar Hill, Fifth Com­pa­ny, Hin­dus­tan/St Mary's, In­ver­ness/Princes Town, Moru­ga, New Grant/Table­land, Re­form/Man­a­ham­bre and St Julien/Princes Town.

The Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) con­trols on­ly Lengua/In­di­an Walk.

On Ju­ly 18, the UNC screened can­di­dates for the cor­po­ra­tion.

A 2011 study by the Caribbean Lo­cal Eco­nom­ic De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme on the PTRC showed that Princes Town, which com­pris­es 56 com­mu­ni­ties, had the sec­ond largest in­ci­dence of chron­ic dis­ease and fourth low­est "sec­ondary and high­er ed­u­ca­tion" at­tain­ment rate. The re­port al­so record­ed the area as hav­ing the low­est rate of fe­male par­tic­i­pa­tion in the work­force and so­cio-eco­nom­ic chal­lenges.

In the 2016 LGE, the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion had list­ed Princes Town's vot­ing pop­u­la­tion at 81,140. Of this fig­ure, a to­tal of 33,712 vot­ers ex­er­cised their fran­chise at the polls.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has promised that LGE, which is due by No­vem­ber or ear­ly next year at the lat­est, will be held on time.

Dur­ing a vis­it to the ten elec­toral dis­tricts late last month by Guardian Me­dia, burgess­es com­plained about a lack of vis­i­bil­i­ty by coun­cil­lors and ser­vices not be­ing de­liv­ered on time by the cor­po­ra­tion.

New Grant/Table­land

Me­tres from the of­fice of New Grant/Table­land coun­cil­lor and PTRC chair­man Gowrie Roop­nar­ine at Khan Av­enue No 1 Road, Den­nis Hors­ford and his daugh­ter Nicole Smith said he has been a no-show.

"I liv­ing here and I ain't see Roop­nar­ine since Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions. The man al­ways ab­sent," Hors­ford said.

Smith, who closed her food es­tab­lish­ment last year due to poor sales, said she ap­plied three times for an ear­ly child­hood teach­ing job with the OJT pro­gramme but was un­suc­cess­ful.

"I not go­ing to stain my fin­ger again. Who win or lose that is them. Is the same pres­sure you have to go through so is bet­ter you with­hold your vote," Smith said.

In Table­land, the home­town of the coun­try's pineap­ples pro­duc­ers, a group of men lim­ing at Man­ta Cool First Branch Road said be­cause Gov­ern­ment had slashed the cor­po­ra­tion's fund­ing many things would have to be left un­done.

"That is the re­al­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion...but Roop­nar­ine has been work­ing the ground," said Leo Theodore.

Corinth/Cedar Hill

At Corinth/Cedar Hill, where Shawn Prem­c­hand is the coun­cil­lor, Solomon Street res­i­dent Car­los Chadee ex­pressed grave con­cerns about nepo­tism in the award of a con­tract to main­tain the recre­ation ground in the dis­trict.

"Every time I go to Prem­c­hand with a mat­ter he com­plains the cor­po­ra­tion has no fund­ing to deal with it. This is un­ac­cept­able," Chadee said, ad­mit­ting that he was dis­sat­is­fied with Prem­c­hand's over­all per­for­mance.

How­ev­er, sev­er­al burgess­es in the area cred­it­ed Prem­c­hand for es­tab­lish­ing two home­work cen­tres which pro­vide free ed­u­ca­tion­al ac­tiv­i­ties for chil­dren three times a week.

"This ser­vice helps par­ents who can­not af­ford pri­vate lessons. Many of these par­ents no longer have jobs. So Prem­c­hand do­ing a good for poor and strug­gling peo­ple," said res­i­dent Mar­lene Ra­goonath.

Ra­goonath said Prem­c­hand's ef­fort should be com­mend­ed be­cause he con­cep­tu­alised the idea and made it a re­al­i­ty with the help of NGOs.

Lengua/In­di­an Walk

The biggest headache faced by burgess­es of Lengua/In­di­an Walk, where Han­iff Sala­mat is coun­cil­lor, is un­em­ploy­ment, di­lap­i­dat­ed roads, and no pipe-borne wa­ter.

Along busy Lengua Road, friends Car­lon Singh, Anil De­o­nanan and Kaber Mo­hammed said they have been hunt­ing for per­ma­nent jobs with­out suc­cess. The men worked in the con­struc­tion sec­tor but was re­trenched months ago due to the stag­nant econ­o­my.

Oc­ca­sion­al­ly, they would sell fruits to eke out a liv­ing.

Singh said not hav­ing a steady job weighed heav­i­ly on his shoul­ders.

"It's frus­trat­ing and de­press­ing. I have no in­ten­tion of vot­ing this elec­tion be­cause is on­ly promis­es af­ter promis­es we get­ting... on­ly lip ser­vice by politi­cians and this is not feed­ing me and my fam­i­ly," Mo­hammed said.

Singh said the lit­tle hope he had was slow­ing erod­ing.

"What hope is there for me when I can't find a job. What am I sup­posed to do, lime on the block and do noth­ing be­cause this is the trend with young peo­ple up here," Singh said.

De­o­nanan said up to three years ago jobs were ac­ces­si­ble.

"At least you still used to get a lit­tle end here and there. Now we have to suck salt. Every­where you turn you get­ting a door slam in your face," De­o­nanan said.

Less than a mile away, Dave Khan could not con­tain his anger as he point­ed to a por­tion of the road which had caved in due to a ma­jor land­slip.

Khan said for months the com­mu­ni­ty had gone through great in­con­ve­nience to get to and from their homes.

"Taxis stopped work­ing in here. Peo­ple have to walk in and out. I for one would not sup­port Sala­mat be­cause he did noth­ing for us. You don't even see the man," Khan said.

Two weeks ago, re­pair works be­gan on the road.

Moru­ga

Res­i­dents in coun­cil­lor Joseph Lo­rant's Moru­ga, a fish­ing and agri­cul­ture-based com­mu­ni­ty, said jobs are be­ing snatched from them by Venezue­lans.

Fish buy­er Lisa Woods said for years fish­er­men have been clam­our­ing for the op­er­a­tion of a 37,800-litre fu­el tank which was erect­ed in 2014 on the com­pound of the Moru­ga/La Ruf­fin Co­op­er­a­tive but nev­er utilised.

"This has be­come an eye­sore in Moru­ga. It has nev­er served the pur­pose for which it was in­tend­ed, to store fu­el which fish­er­men could have pur­chased here rather than go­ing out­side," Woods said.

Woods said lo­cals and Venezue­lans tus­sle for the few job op­por­tu­ni­ties of­fered in the rur­al com­mu­ni­ty.

The Venezue­lans who live in the com­mu­ni­ty, John Thomp­son said, are paid less and work longer hours.

"They do al­most any and every­thing down here, from fish­ing to agri­cul­ture to clean­ing yards. They have a sur­vival in­stinct in them," John said.

Fish­er­man Stephan Fred­er­ick said with LGE around the cor­ner, politi­cians will pledge this, that and the oth­er, but warned vot­ers to be wary of wolves in sheep cloth­ing.

Chris Charles point­ed to sev­er­al ar­eas along the Moru­ga Road which had col­lapsed and were now cor­doned off with strips of bam­boo and cau­tion tape warn­ing dri­vers of the im­pend­ing dan­ger.

"What we need is prop­er roads up here. No mat­ter how we beg and plead noth­ing work­ing. This is out­right ne­glect," Charles said.

Pen­sion­er An­tho­ny Padil­la and Stephen Gomez said there was a lack of rep­re­sen­ta­tion by Lo­rant.

Fifth Com­pa­ny

Burgess­es of Fifth Com­pa­ny, which falls in the dis­trict of coun­cil­lor Rafi Mo­hammed, iden­ti­fied lack of wa­ter and crime as two is­sues ad­verse­ly af­fect­ing them.

At War­ren Trace, res­i­dents were up in arms over re­ceiv­ing wa­ter once a month.

"Most times we pay $300 for 800 gal­lons of wa­ter which on­ly last a few days. We pay­ing our wa­ter bills and still have to fork out mon­ey for truck-borne wa­ter. This is mad­ness," Daniel Smith griped.

Through­out Mandin­go Road, there were re­ports of armed rob­beries, house break-ins and land ero­sion.

One res­i­dent who pre­ferred to re­main anony­mous said gun-tot­ing ban­dits stormed his home three months ago and drove off with the fam­i­ly's new Fi­la wag­on val­ued $130,000.

Res­i­dent Jas­so­drah Seer­at­tan said the cor­po­ra­tion promised to build a drain in front of the res­i­dents' homes to chan­nel wa­ter in­to a near­by riv­er but this nev­er ma­te­ri­alised.

"When rain falls the wa­ter has nowhere to go and backs up in front of our homes, which has been erod­ing our lands," said Seer­at­tan.

"I not go­ing to vote for Rafi again be­cause he didn't help us. His rep­re­sen­ta­tion has been poor and dis­ap­point­ing."

Our biggest chal­lenge is fund­ing—chair­man

De­spite re­ceiv­ing less fund­ing from Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment this year, the PTRC has been de­liv­er­ing to its burgess­es.

The boast came from PTRC chair­man Gowrie Roop­nar­ine, coun­cil­lor for the New Grant/Table­land area, dur­ing a tele­phone in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia re­cent­ly.

"Yes, our biggest chal­lenge is fund­ing," Roop­nar­ine said.

He said the cor­po­ra­tion was "for­tu­nate to draw down some of its al­lo­ca­tions" to un­der­take de­vel­op­men­tal projects.

The cor­po­ra­tion al­lo­ca­tion for this year was $83 mil­lion, most of which pay wages to its 400-plus staff.

"This year we re­ceived $15 mil­lion for our de­vel­op­men­tal projects," Roop­nar­ine said.

Al­though the mon­ey has not been suf­fi­cient, Roop­nar­ine said they have been de­liv­er­ing to burgess­es.

He ad­mit­ted that burgess­es of­ten blame the cor­po­ra­tion for fail­ing to re­pair bad roads, many of which fall un­der the purview of the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port. He cit­ed roads in the dis­tricts of Hin­dus­tan/St Mary's which the min­istry was not treat­ing with.

"The fund­ing that is giv­en to the cor­po­ra­tion there is no way we can do that project. That would ab­sorb our en­tire de­vel­op­men­tal project fund­ing and more be­cause there are three ma­jor land­slips," Roop­nar­ine said.

Roop­nar­ine agreed that some coun­cil­lors work more than oth­ers.

"I have been work­ing. We have been mak­ing things hap­pen with the lit­tle fund­ing that we have been get­ting. But a lot more can be done."

Coun­cil­lors re­spond

•Corinth/Cedar Hill coun­cil­lor Shawn Prem­c­hand rub­bished re­ports that the cor­po­ra­tion had award­ed a con­tract to his fam­i­ly to up­keep the Solomon Recre­ation­al Ground.

"Those al­le­ga­tions are not true. Peo­ple are just out to make mis­chief," Prem­c­hand in­sist­ed.

“Yes, fund­ing is an is­sue at the cor­po­ra­tion for in­fra­struc­tur­al work. But I have been do­ing things on my own by rais­ing funds through cor­po­rate en­ti­ties and host­ing events. I have been serv­ing the peo­ple. The ev­i­dence is there."

•Han­iff Sala­mat said be­ing the lone PNM coun­cil­lor in a UNC-con­trolled cor­po­ra­tion has worked against him.

Sala­mat rep­re­sents Lengua/In­di­an Walk.

"The odds have been stacked against me as all the UNC coun­cil­lors have been grab­bing for what they can get as the elec­tion draws clos­er."

He said he has no choice but to take what he gets.

Sala­mat al­so ac­cused the cor­po­ra­tion of giv­ing pref­er­en­tial treat­ment to UNC sup­port­ers and ig­nor­ing his PNM burgess­es.

“I would not lie for that. I want to say I don’t rep­re­sent the PNM or UNC. I rep­re­sent the peo­ple. I have been work­ing," Sala­mat said.

Sala­mat, how­ev­er, said the cor­po­ra­tion was not strapped for fund­ing, as its 2019 de­vel­op­men­tal projects had al­ready been ap­proved.

•Moru­ga coun­cil­lor Joseph Lo­rant al­so com­plained that his per­for­mance was crip­pled by in­suf­fi­cient funds to un­der­take de­vel­op­men­tal projects. He said his great­est achieve­ment was the il­lu­mi­na­tion of the Grand Chemin Recre­ation­al Ground, which was done through some mem­bers of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty and res­i­dents of Moru­ga.

“This was a ma­jor achieve­ment for me be­cause it uni­fied the peo­ple. Sport is em­bed­ded with­in my elec­toral dis­trict," Lo­rant said.

•Fifth Com­pa­ny coun­cil­lor Rafi Mo­hammed iden­ti­fied crime, lack of wa­ter, un­em­ploy­ment and de­plorable roads as his bug­bears.

“The clo­sure of Petrotrin's re­fin­ery would have af­fect­ed sev­er­al peo­ple in my elec­toral dis­trict," Mo­hammed said.

"Un­em­ploy­ment re­mains an is­sue in the Barack­pore area. Jobs are hard to come by."

Con­tin­u­ing to­mor­row