RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of his fa­ther late Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning is lob­by­ing to give Corinth squat­ter fam­i­lies first pri­or­i­ty for hous­ing units near their homes, once they qual­i­fy.

The res­i­dents who have lived on the train line for over 50 years have been bat­tling with dust and slush from the low-cost hous­ing con­struc­tion site lo­cat­ed about 100 feet from their homes.

Man­ning, who has vis­it­ed the squat­ters sev­er­al times in the past, said he felt it was his re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to take care of all the poor fam­i­lies in the con­stituen­cy.

“It is our job to look af­ter the most vul­ner­a­ble in our con­stituen­cy. If you lis­ten to the Bud­get we spoke to­wards stim­u­lat­ing the econ­o­my and not leav­ing our most vul­ner­a­ble be­hind,” Man­ning said.

He ex­plained that re­lo­cat­ing the res­i­dents of the train line was a top pri­or­i­ty.

“This is some­thing we will work to­wards. The res­i­dents of this Train­line are our high­est pri­or­i­ty in terms of our goals and agen­da for the con­stituen­cy,” Man­ning said.

Join­ing Man­ning on the tour was the Land Set­tle­ment Agency’s (LSA’s) chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Haz­ar Ho­sein and chair­man of the LSA Oss­ley Fran­cis.

Ho­sein said, “We were look­ing to see how we can im­prove the lives of per­sons in the area in terms of in­fra­struc­ture and look­ing at oth­er pro­grammes that we im­ple­ment at the min­istry of hous­ing at the land set­tle­ment agency.”

He ex­plained that there were sev­er­al pro­grammes un­der the LSA’s purview which in­clud­ed squat­ter reg­u­lar­iza­tion, hous­ing and vil­lage im­prove­ment and gov­ern­ment-aid­ed self-help hous­ing pro­grammes.

San Fernando East MP Brian Manning, left, speaks to a Corinth Trainline, Ste Madeleine resident during a walkabout of the area yesterday.

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

“We are look­ing at sev­er­al squat­ting com­mu­ni­ties on the Corinth Train­line, Blitz Vil­lage and we are look­ing to see how we can im­prove the lives of per­sons in the area in terms of in­fra­struc­ture. This is the start of the eval­u­a­tion process to see how we can im­prove their lives,” Ho­sein said.

He not­ed that the LSA does not have the pow­er to curb squat­ting which has in­creased with­in re­cent times. He not­ed that the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands, Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion and the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning were giv­en the au­thor­i­ty by the State to stop re­cent squat­ters.

Mean­while, res­i­dents of Corinth Train­line said they were ea­ger for re­lo­ca­tion.

Tim Nan­goo said the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty has been run­ning sew­er lines for the new hous­ing com­mu­ni­ty by drilling the ex­ist­ing road along the Train­line.

“Right through this road here they are drilling. They are putting the sew­er thing in the mid­dle of the road so this road locked off,” Tim said.

Res­i­dent Stephen Nan­goo said he was not in favour of re­lo­ca­tion be­cause at this ad­vanced stage of his life he could not go through with a mort­gage.

An­oth­er res­i­dent Par­batie De­onar­ine said the dust was un­bear­able for the res­i­dents since the con­struc­tion start­ed.

“We have chil­dren who suf­fer­ing from asth­ma here and this dust is not good for us,” De­onar­ine said. She said the en­tire road was filled with mud and slush.

De­onar­ine said she was hap­py that Man­ning had vis­it­ed say­ing that she hoped he made good on his promise to im­prove their liv­ing con­di­tions.