RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA
rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Cesspool, grass cut­ting, and drain clean­ing op­er­a­tions at the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (PDRC) have ground to a halt fol­low­ing the gov­ern­ment's fail­ure to re­lease fund­ing al­lo­cat­ed in the last Bud­get.

Dur­ing a protest at the Cor­po­ra­tion's sub-of­fice in Debe on Fri­day, chair­man of the Cor­po­ra­tion, Dr Allen Sam­my, told Guardian Me­dia the diesel sup­ply had run out so all rolling equip­ment, in­clud­ing trucks, were now at a stand­still.

"No fund­ing has been re­leased for the pur­chase of diesel for ve­hi­cles since the read­ing of the Bud­get on Oc­to­ber 1st. All our re­sources are now de­plet­ed to the point where there is no diesel avail­able for trucks and oth­er rolling stock to do their nor­mal du­ties," Dr Sam­my re­vealed.

Say­ing a health cri­sis was loom­ing, Dr Sam­my ex­plained:

"Cesspit trucks can­not go out, back­hoes can­not go to clean drains or wa­ter­cours­es, and the brush cut­ters can­not cut the recre­ation grounds. This is a ma­jor is­sue which we have raised with the Min­is­ter and the Prime Min­is­ter."

Show­ing proof of the let­ter writ­ten to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, Dr Sam­my said the con­se­quences of no funds have been dire for over 90,000 burgess­es.

"It im­pacts on our abil­i­ty to de­liv­er ma­te­ri­als to con­struc­tion sites, col­lect­ing bulk waste and de­bris from drains, mos­qui­to spray­ing, rat bait­ing, serv­ing no­tices, cut­ting out­fields, patch­ing pot­holes, de­liv­er­ing truck borne wa­ter to clean mar­kets and ser­vice in­sti­tu­tions, back­hoe clean­ing to al­le­vi­ate flood­ing," the PDRC chair­man point­ed out.

How­ev­er, nei­ther Dr Row­ley nor Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert has in­ter­vened to re­lease the bud­getary funds.

Re­cent­ly, a farmer of Wood­land con­tract­ed lep­tospiro­sis and with the im­pact of COVID-19 in the com­mu­ni­ties, Dr Sam­my said it was im­por­tant for the Cor­po­ra­tion to get the monies to car­ry out the Cor­po­ra­tion's work.

He said dur­ing a meet­ing with Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Kaz­im Ho­sein last week Wednes­day, the Cor­po­ra­tion was ad­vised to uti­lize over $1.477 mil­lion in un­spent bal­ances.

"I in­formed the min­is­ter and the PS that this has been com­mit­ted al­ready for wages and salaries. The CEO sub­se­quent­ly sent a let­ter with de­tails show­ing that there is no $1.477 mil­lion of un­spent bal­ances. That was a week ago and we still have no re­lease of funds. There has been no re­sponse from the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary," Sam­my said.

Ac­cus­ing the gov­ern­ment of ge­o­graph­i­cal dis­crim­i­na­tion, Sam­my ques­tioned why the Cor­po­ra­tion has not re­ceived a cent. He not­ed that the ar­eas ser­viced by the Cor­po­ra­tion are rep­re­sent­ed by Na­pari­ma MP Rod­ney Charles, Oropouche East Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, Oropouche West Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo and Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Mean­while, Kr­ish­na Per­sads­ingh, chair­man of the Phys­i­cal In­fra­struc­ture Com­mit­tee, said peo­ple could no longer ex­er­cise in their com­mu­ni­ties as the grounds were over­grown.

"There are rats, snakes, ver­min at these grounds and it has af­fect­ed the abil­i­ty of peo­ple to go out and ex­er­cise and breathe in that fresh air which is need­ed par­tic­u­lar­ly now at a time of COVID," he said.

MP Tan­coo said the with­hold­ing of the re­lease of funds by the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment was a clear case of vic­tim­iza­tion.

"The Port of Spain Cor­po­ra­tion has re­ceived its re­lease from the gov­ern­ment. That Cor­po­ra­tion last year got mon­ey to place turf on a recre­ation ground, but this Pe­nal/Debe Cor­po­ra­tion could not get mon­ey to buy diesel to clean a drain or to cut a recre­ation ground. This is po­lit­i­cal vic­tim­iza­tion at its high­est," Tan­coo charged.

Mean­while, a se­nior source said a re­quest was made by the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­istry for the re­lease of bud­getary funds from the Min­istry of Fi­nance, but this has not yet been done.

Ef­forts to con­tact Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Kaz­im Ho­sein proved fu­tile as calls to his cel­lu­lar phone went unan­swered. Mes­sages left for Min­is­ter Im­bert al­so went unan­swered.