Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

Mo­torists us­ing the Ca­paro Val­ley Bras­so Road have been as­sured that long-over­due re­pairs to the dam­aged road­way near the WASA pump­ing sta­tion at Ca­paro will soon be car­ried out.

Dis­grun­tled res­i­dents have com­plained that the road be­gan slip­ping dur­ing heavy rain­falls in 2022 and no re­me­di­al work was done for an ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od. Mi­nor re­pairs were un­der­tak­en short­ly be­fore the last Gen­er­al Elec­tion, but ac­cord­ing to res­i­dents, heavy rains soon washed away the ma­te­r­i­al that had been used to patch the road.

Lo­cal gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Ca­paro/Mamoral un­der the Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, John Leza­ma, said he in­tends to take new­ly ap­point­ed Works Min­is­ter Jear­lean John to the area with­in the next two weeks.

Leza­ma not­ed that the con­struc­tion of a re­tain­ing wall is nec­es­sary to pre­vent the near­by riv­er from fur­ther erod­ing the road­way and caus­ing a com­plete col­lapse. He al­so said one res­i­dent had tak­en it up­on him­self to use old rub­ble to back­fill a por­tion of the east­ern side of the road, which helped pre­vent fur­ther slip­page.

“This area has been ne­glect­ed for years. Two weeks be­fore the elec­tion, a patch job was done. This is a busy road used by peo­ple trav­el­ling from Rio Claro to Ch­agua­nas,” Leza­ma said.

He said he in­tends to high­light the need for re­pairs to oth­er roads and bridges in the area.

“I am pos­i­tive that the work will be done,” he said.

Mean­while, lo­cal res­i­dent Sham­mie Lakan ex­pressed con­cern that land slip­page was be­gin­ning to af­fect his home.

“My house is start­ing to crack,” Lakan said.