SHAS­TRI BOODAN

The Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion has vowed to find a way to pay its work­ers, ac­cord­ing May­or Faaiq Mo­hammed. The May­or still be­lieves Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment is dis­crim­i­nat­ing against the Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion and oth­er Op­po­si­tion-con­trolled lo­cal gov­ern­ment bod­ies.

He was at the time field­ing ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia on Thurs­day morn­ing, when mo­torists and res­i­dents demon­strat­ed for the con­struc­tion of a two-lane bridge at Bridel Road, Cunu­pia. 

Mo­hammed and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Faris Al Rawi have been in a war of words. Al-Rawi has re­peat­ed­ly said the Cor­po­ra­tion has funds avail­able and urged the May­or to “pay the peo­ple” af­ter the May­or claimed the Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion was in dire need of funds to pay work­ers.

Shutdown- A motorist stalled on the Bridel Road bailey bridge on Thursday, September 15. (Image by SHASTRI BOODAN)

Al-Rawi, said the CBC had over $8 mil­lion of un­spent mon­ey that can be used.

Mo­hammed replied to­day:

“The ques­tion is not about whether the cor­po­ra­tion does not want to pay work­ers. The re­al is­sue is that the Gov­ern­ment is un­der bud­get­ing and un­der al­lo­cat­ing for the CBC, that is the re­al is­sue. We will find a way to pay our work­ers, but we will not stand for the dis­crim­i­na­tion this gov­ern­ment has to­wards UNC run cor­po­ra­tions and that is the is­sue here.”

When asked if he be­lieves that funds were be­ing di­vert­ed else­where, the May­or as­sert­ed:

“I don’t know what they are do­ing with the funds, but it's not com­ing to the CBC.”

Chaguanas Mayor Faaiq Mohammed and other demonstrators at Bridel Road on Thursday, September 15. (Image by SHASTRI BOODAN)

Mo­hammed said the sin­gle lane bridge is adding to the al­ready con­gest­ed cen­tral Bor­ough and cre­at­ing is­sues dur­ing peak hours. Mo­torists com­plain they have to wait as long as 20-30 min­utes to cross the bridge. He said the CBC has writ­ten to the au­thor­i­ties re­quest­ing traf­fic lights to as­sist.

Mo­hammed said there is al­so a short­age of Traf­fic War­dens. He said the prob­lem with the Traf­fic War­dens ex­tends fur­ther since they work from 6 am to 4 pm and have no trans­porta­tion. The war­dens are in­stead lim­it­ed to pa­trolling in front of the mar­ket and Busy Cor­ner.

Abuzar Mo­hammed, a res­i­dent of the area, said the in­stal­la­tion of a traf­fic light would on­ly re­sult in a two-lane bridge not be­ing built. Cit­ing an ex­am­ple, Mo­hammed said a sin­gle lane bai­ley bridge was in­stalled at the Ed­in­burgh 500 area at Mon­trose since 2011, and was nev­er up­grad­ed.

SEE AL­SO: Faris again tells Faaiq: Pay the peo­ple

https://guardian.co.tt/news/faris-again-tells-faaiq-pay-the-peo­ple-6.2.1545073.d28be0e74e