An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Even as the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) read­ies it­self for the na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive elec­tion on June 15, two MPs are host­ing com­mu­ni­ty meet­ings to learn about the is­sues af­fect­ing res­i­dents in var­i­ous ar­eas.

Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray and Tabaquite MP Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne on Tues­day in­vit­ed res­i­dents to the Cara­po Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, to re­veal the prob­lems they were ex­pe­ri­enc­ing, and to of­fer sug­ges­tions and rec­om­men­da­tions on how they could be ad­dressed.

The ini­tia­tive promised to be an open fo­rum where mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty could come to­geth­er to dis­cuss im­por­tant is­sues and share their thoughts and con­cerns for a bet­ter Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia ahead of the pro­ceed­ings, Haynes-Al­leyne said res­i­dents were hes­i­tant to have their iden­ti­ties pub­li­cised and as such, the me­dia would not be al­lowed to record the meet­ing.

Paray and Haynes-Al­leyne heard from peo­ple in Cara­po and en­vi­rons, in­clud­ing D’Abadie and O’Meara.

She said, “They are in­ter­est­ed in what we can do to go for­ward as we head to the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion.”

In­di­cat­ing sim­i­lar meet­ings would con­tin­ue to take place in the com­ing weeks, Haynes-Al­leyne added, “We en­joy meet­ing with mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty so that we know when we get to Par­lia­ment, what we need to rep­re­sent and ad­vo­cate for.”

Out­side of her con­stituen­cy of Tabaquite, Haynes-Al­leyne has so far held meet­ings in San Fer­nan­do East and West, Tu­na­puna and St Joseph.

She claimed these were on­ly some of the ar­eas that were, “look­ing for­ward to a type of dis­course as we are in the UNC in­ter­nal elec­tion’s phase, but as we get in­to a gen­er­al elec­tion foot­ing as to what are the is­sues fac­ing our coun­try that they want to hear on our po­lit­i­cal plat­forms be­ing ad­dressed”.

Pressed to say what was the main is­sue be­ing raised, Haynes-Al­leyne im­me­di­ate­ly an­swered, “Crime be­ing the ma­jor is­sue, and in­fra­struc­tur­al woes.

“Every con­stituen­cy that we go to time and time again, peo­ple are say­ing we can­not be fight­ing for ba­sic ne­ces­si­ties so their safe­ty first and fore­most.”

In­fra­struc­ture and ed­u­ca­tion­al is­sues round­ed out the top three.

Cara­po res­i­dent Taranah Mo­hammed said a re­li­able and steady wa­ter sup­ply, as well as road re­pairs, were among the top two is­sues which need­ed to be ur­gent­ly ad­dressed in the com­mu­ni­ty.

“We have been ne­glect­ed for over ten years in Cara­po. No­body has come out to hear us or rep­re­sent us prop­er­ly so I reached out to MP Ani­ta Haynes and MP Rush­ton Paray, and they did as­sist us in hav­ing this com­mu­ni­ty meet­ing.”

Mo­hammed said res­i­dents were not about block­ing roads and protest­ing nois­i­ly – but about hav­ing the is­sues ad­dressed by rep­re­sen­ta­tives who would en­sure the prob­lems are rec­ti­fied in a time­ly and ben­e­fi­cial man­ner.