RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Fac­ing no wa­ter in their taps and a pot­holed road, res­i­dents of Har­ris Vil­lage South Oropouche staged a plac­ard protest on Wednes­day morn­ing, pre­tend­ing to catch fish in­side the gap­ing pot­hole.

Us­ing a fish­ing pole with a dead fish dan­gling, they shout­ed: "Look look the fish! This pot­hole big enough to mind fish!"

They then used a buck­et to bail out the murky wa­ter, wad­ing through the pot­hole in rub­ber boots to show the depth and size.

Mo­torist Man­ickchan Bridge­mo­hans­ingh said the pot­hole at Har­ris Vil­lage South Oropouche was just 50 feet away from the new­ly paved Solomon Ho­choy High­way Ex­ten­sion.

Residents stage a placard protest calling on the Ministry of Works to fix the potholes along the Southern Main Road. Photo by Kristian De Silva

"You mean they couldn't pave this lit­tle area here if they paving across here? We wait­ing for a year and more now. The road is slip­ping here and the wa­ter line is un­der­min­ing the road," Bridge­mo­hans­ingh re­vealed.

He said the traf­fic con­ges­tion was hor­ren­dous.

" From Av­o­cat to Oropouche it takes about half an hour. To reach from Av­o­cat you have to face this," he said, point­ing to the pot­holes.

He added: "You can't do noth­ing be­cause the road re­al re­al bad. It cost me $4,000 to $5,000 to fix my car be­cause the sus­pen­sion gone."

Taxi dri­ver Ra­jesh Bhairoo, of Pep­per Vil­lage, said he too was frus­trat­ed.

"My ve­hi­cle is down right now be­cause of the con­di­tion of this road and we need this road fixed im­me­di­ate­ly," he said.

Coun­cil­lor for San Fran­cique / Av­o­cat who led the "fish­ing ex­pe­di­tion" said it was un­for­tu­nate that WASA has con­tin­ued to leave the road in a state of dis­re­pair.

"This hole is here for the past year and we have com­plained about it. This is cre­at­ing enor­mous traf­fic through­out the day in the morn­ings and evenings. We don't have wa­ter and when­ev­er re­pairs are done, they are not do­ing the restora­tion work. That side of the road is cav­ing away be­cause there is an un­der­ground seep­age," he said.

Mayrhoo said: "I am send­ing a warn­ing that to­day we are do­ing a peace­ful protest but by next week if some­thing isn't done then it will be fire here," he said.

He said the Min­is­ter of Works Ro­han Sinanan had promised to be­gin road re­pairs in the dry sea­son.

"I want to tell him open your win­dow you will see the sun hot so you could re­pair the roads be­cause all you do is promise, promise, promise and they are do­ing noth­ing," he added.

MP for Fyza­qbad Lack­ram Bo­doe said he wrote to Min­is­ter Sinanan on Jan­u­ary 8th ask­ing him to re­pair the pot­hole close to LP 102 in the vicin­i­ty of the ceme­tery along the South­ern Main Road which was caus­ing mas­sive con­ges­tion.

Bo­doe said the en­tire road lead­ing to Fyz­abad was "in a per­ilous state."

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Min­is­ter Sinanan who said there is a sched­ule to re­pair roads.

"All roads list­ed un­der the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port are on our list­ing to be ad­dressed based on a for­mu­la and the avail­able fund­ing pro­vid­ed by the Min­istry of Fi­nance," he said, adding: "If the pot­holes were left by WASA as you said then you should seek a com­ment from WASA.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les said he will in­ves­ti­gate if and why the road was left in a di­lap­i­dat­ed state as there is a sys­tem in place to en­sure there is road restora­tion af­ter leak re­pairs.

"I will have the CEO and the area man­agers in­ves­ti­gate the mat­ter and if found to be fac­tu­al im­me­di­ate­ly ad­dress the mat­ter. I won't com­ment on the fish­ing ex­pe­di­tion of the res­i­dents save to say that I hope they had a good catch giv­en the price of fish in this let­ter sea­son," Gon­za­les said.

He said he will give a fur­ther com­ment af­ter in­ves­ti­ga­tions.