KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Job­less af­ter last month’s mass CEPEP ter­mi­na­tion, a Princes Town woman is plead­ing for a new home as on­go­ing road works have left her house cracked, flood­ed, and on the brink of col­lapse.

Kizie Sci­pio can on­ly leave her Sixth Com­pa­ny Cir­cu­lar Road home wear­ing gar­den boots be­cause of the per­sis­tent mud caused by wa­ter seep­ing down­hill from the road­side. She shares the home with her 18-year-old broth­er, Levi Swamber. Near tears, she de­scribed the con­di­tions she has en­dured over the past few weeks and her ur­gent need for re­lo­ca­tion.

Sci­pio was part of a fiery protest in Jan­u­ary 2018 at Sixth Com­pa­ny Vil­lage, where she and oth­er res­i­dents de­mand­ed re­pairs to roads and drains dam­aged by land­slips and heavy rain­fall. She said she had al­ready lost two homes—one to a bro­ken road­side drain and an­oth­er to mud and slush from a ma­jor land­slip. At the time, she re­port­ed the sit­u­a­tion to the Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC), and then-MP Dr Lovell Fran­cis.

In April this year, the Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (NID­CO) be­gan land­slip re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion work along the road­way. The project, which be­gan on April 29, is ex­pect­ed to last six months.

But on Ju­ly 5, Sci­pio, 42, said she was asleep when she heard wa­ter flow­ing around her. Swamber alert­ed her that wa­ter was en­ter­ing the house through the wall.

She ex­plained that work­ers were ini­tial­ly build­ing a drain op­po­site her home, but moved across the road three weeks ago and be­gan ex­ca­vat­ing an area that had been shored up with steel sheets. Soon af­ter, the wa­ter main burst. Al­though WASA re­paired the leak by night­fall, wa­ter con­tin­ued to seep in­to her home. The new gra­di­ent cre­at­ed by the ex­ca­va­tion now caus­es rain­wa­ter to flow di­rect­ly in­to the prop­er­ty.

“My place was good all the time. I did not have a prob­lem. I can­not live in this here.”

Sci­pio said the line sprang an­oth­er leak last week, re­quir­ing two more WASA vis­its. Stand­ing in her mud­dy yard, she showed where wa­ter con­tin­ued to seep from the ground, now flow­ing un­der­neath the house and weak­en­ing its foun­da­tion. With one neigh­bour’s house al­ready shift­ing due to the type of soil, she fears the cracks in her own home will wors­en.

She added that the wa­ter has be­come pu­trid, mak­ing her feel sick. When Sun­day Guardian vis­it­ed yes­ter­day, mud­dy wa­ter cov­ered the floors, dam­ag­ing her mat­tress, floor­ing, and oth­er be­long­ings.

Sci­pio said she in­formed Moru­ga/Table­land MP Michelle Ben­jamin of her sit­u­a­tion and re­quest­ed re­lo­ca­tion. She was re­mind­ed that she had reg­is­tered for an HDC unit in 2017 but was told she would need to wait while the MP’s of­fice re­sub­mits doc­u­ments and restarts the process.

“I said I can­not wait. My sit­u­a­tion is ur­gent.”

Out of work, Sci­pio hopes the Gov­ern­ment keeps its promise to re­hire dis­missed CEPEP work­ers. That way, she said, she could af­ford to live else­where. She moved in­to her cur­rent house in 2015, af­ter her then-em­ploy­ers pro­vid­ed build­ing ma­te­ri­als to help her re­build.

Ben­jamin con­firmed that she knows Sci­pio fond­ly, is aware of her plight and has spo­ken with her. Giv­en the ur­gency, she said she was work­ing on a tem­po­rary re­lo­ca­tion for Sci­pio while pur­su­ing op­tions for her to re­ceive an HDC unit.