Over 70 Moru­ga farm­ers have re­newed their call for the Min­istry of Works and the Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion to fix a ma­jor bridge at Ed­ward Trace, that col­lapsed weeks ago.

Farmer Leo Mor­gan says it has been frus­trat­ing bring­ing out their crops since the Hulket Bridge at Ed­ward Trace col­lapsed in­to the Hulket Riv­er.

“We have to make the rounds to use the oth­er side of Hulket Bridge near the NGC Road. Be­fore our tank of diesel used to last one week but now we have to fill our diesel every two days,” Mor­gan said.

Tra­vers­ing up and down the steep hills to get to their fields has al­so tak­en a toll on their ve­hi­cles.

“Things al­ready hard for us and when we have to make the rounds our ve­hi­cles mash­ing up. We re­al­ly want the Min­istry of Works to help us,” Mor­gan said.

He said the bridge they cur­rent­ly use is al­so dan­ger­ous and could fall at any time.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Works Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan said the bridge did not fall un­der the purview of his Min­istry but was un­der the ju­ris­dic­tion of the Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion. He said the min­istry was sup­ply­ing tech­ni­cal ad­vice to the cor­po­ra­tion.

But the chair­man of the Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Gowrie Roop­nar­ine said the bridge was sit­u­at­ed on an oil­field road that fell un­der the purview of Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um.

He not­ed that the PTRC has been in touch with the farm­ers and un­der­stood their plight.

He not­ed that an es­ti­mate for re­pairs to the bridge was sub­mit­ted to the Min­istry of Works and they were await­ing fur­ther in­for­ma­tion.

The es­ti­mate for re­pairs was said to be ap­prox­i­mate­ly $280,000. Roop­nar­ine said they hoped the Min­istry could pro­vide a bai­ley bridge for the farm­ers so they can con­tin­ue to ac­cess their fields. 

On Au­gust 29 truck dri­ver Ter­rence Joseph was on his way to drop off ma­te­r­i­al when the bridge gave way be­neath his truck. Joseph had to claw his way to safe­ty with the help of three scrap deal­ers who lat­er robbed him of $1,400.

The truck has since been re­moved from the riv­er. Joseph es­caped with mi­nor in­juries. Ed­ward Trace links Moru­ga to Guayagua­yare and is a ma­jor thor­ough­fare for work­ers in the oil and gas in­dus­try.