Eight days be­fore the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions (LGE) is due to take place, the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (SGRC) has gone on a road paving and box drain fren­zy val­ued mil­lions of dol­lars.

Mean­while, there are al­so claims that food cards and jobs are be­ing of­fered to vot­ers to sup­port the rul­ing Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Gov­ern­ment at the polls.

It is wide­ly be­lieved that whichev­er par­ty—the PNM or the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC)—wrests con­trol of the mar­gin­al SGRC, they will emerge the over­all vic­tor in the De­cem­ber 2 LGE.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Hamid Ghany in his Sun­day Guardian col­umn last week stat­ed that the con­test for the LGE was go­ing to be fierce and that the ini­tial fo­cus ap­pears to be the San­gre Grande and Siparia cor­po­ra­tions where the con­test was tight in 2016.

There was a 4-4 tie for the SGRC in the 2016 LGE in terms of seats won and al­der­men al­lo­cat­ed by pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion. The tie was bro­ken by a la­cu­na in the law that per­mit­ted the in­cum­bent chair­man Ter­ry Ron­don to pre­side over the sit­ting and ex­er­cise a cast­ing vote. That sit­u­a­tion was on­ly pos­si­ble be­cause Ron­don had won his seat.

Ghany said there was the need for a for­mu­la to break ties in the LGE where the num­ber of seats won in first-past-the-post sys­tem when com­bined with the al­lo­ca­tions of al­der­men by pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion end up with a tie.

In the last week burgess­es in San­gre Grande North­west and To­co—two PNM strong­hold dis­tricts—have seen a paving spree by a con­tin­gent of con­trac­tors which in­cludes Kall­co and Coos­al.

Roads in Cu­mu­to and Tamana which are known UNC ar­eas have been re­paired and paved. Al­so, the San­gre Grande Main Road and sev­er­al near­by branch roads re­ceived fresh lay­ers of as­phalt.

New pave­ments were al­so con­struct­ed along the Main Road to spruce up the heart of San­gre Grande.

It’s part of the gains for the vot­ing pop­u­la­tion in the height of the LGE cam­paign, as new roads, bridges, box drains, so­cial ser­vices, pave­ments and tem­po­rary jobs are be­ing of­fered.

While many wel­comed the in­creased paving and repaving, say­ing it was long over­due, oth­ers see it as an elec­tion gim­mick to en­tice vot­ers, in­sist­ing that the qual­i­ty of work is rushed and has left much to be de­sired.

At Sal­i­b­ia Street, To­co, res­i­dents com­plained about cracks in their re­cent­ly resheet­ed road.

There was al­so ev­i­dence of paving over a leak­ing wa­ter line at Rail­way Road #2, San­gre Grande.

Push­ing an emp­ty wheel­bar­row up a hill in To­co, res­i­dent Ger­ard An­drews ad­mit­ted that the biggest is­sue af­fect­ing vil­lagers and mo­torists was the de­plorable roads in the com­mu­ni­ty.

Chair­man of the SGRC Ter­ry Ron­don is the PNM can­di­date for To­co East/Va­len­cia elec­toral dis­trict. Ron­don’s main ri­val is UNC’s Ker­win Charles.

When a fleet of heavy equip­ment rolled in­to their com­mu­ni­ty on Wednes­day to pave roads that were rid­dled with craters, An­drews be­came over­joyed.

But his hopes were soon dashed, as the con­trac­tor af­ter paving 300 feet of the Sal­i­b­ia Road packed up and left.

“The con­trac­tor left the ma­jor­i­ty of de­plorable road un­done. The way I see this, it is an elec­tion gim­mick. You paved a lit­tle por­tion to show you do some­thing. We sup­posed to have it bet­ter than this. I not go­ing to fall for that,” An­drews said.

Apart from leav­ing a large por­tion of the road un­done, An­drews said he ob­served huge cracks in the as­phalt.

He won­dered how long the road would last giv­en the vis­i­ble splits.

“We are in the height of the rainy sea­son. Af­ter two heavy show­ers that road might wash away. Is we tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey spend­ing here. They sup­posed to do a bet­ter job than that.”

An­drews was so turned off, he was un­de­cid­ed about vot­ing.

Like An­drews, Doreen James, 62, said she too was dis­ap­point­ed when the con­trac­tor did not com­plete the road which she us­es reg­u­lar­ly.

Taxis sel­dom ven­ture in­to the area, forc­ing res­i­dents to walk for miles to get to and from their homes.

'To­co tak­en for a ride'

Not far away, a vis­i­bly up­set Ke­ston Glas­gow said the peo­ple of To­co were be­ing tak­en for a ride by the PNM and it’s time they wake up.

Glas­gow claimed for years Rodon had promised to re­pair the Morne Cabrite Road which had be­come im­pass­able.

“I fed up of years of PNM promis­es. Is plain talk bad man­ners. I gave Ron­don my vote sev­er­al times and he did noth­ing for me. Now I go­ing to give the UNC a chance,” Glas­gow said.

Sit­ting on an aban­doned fruit stall at Moral­do Trace, Cumana, which was plas­tered with elec­tion fly­ers bear­ing Ron­don’s pho­tographs, Lloyd Du­mas said the com­mu­ni­ty’s biggest headache was the poor con­di­tion of the To­co Main Road which spans sev­er­al miles.

Du­mas, a can­cer sur­vivor, said there are mixed views by peo­ple in the com­mu­ni­ty as to who they are vot­ing.

“Some peo­ple say put back the PNM while oth­ers want the UNC to con­trol things. But I think peo­ple will gen­er­al­ly vote along racial lines. It will all boil down to trib­al pol­i­tics. It’s go­ing to be a tough and fierce bat­tle be­tween the two main par­ties. Ei­ther par­ty could win, see­ing that both sides cap­tured four elec­toral dis­tricts in the 2016 elec­tions. I feel it’s go­ing to be a close call.”

Du­mas said one thing that could make the PNM lose votes for this LGE was the poor state of the roads in the north­east­ern re­gion which peo­ple want im­proved.

“Peo­ple’s pa­tience is run­ning thin. Ac­tion has been slow in com­ing,” Du­mas said.

Hav­ing sup­port­ed the PNM for years, Tom­pire South Bank Road, Cumana Vil­lage res­i­dent Mark Joseph wants to hear noth­ing about the par­ty and Ron­don who he sup­port­ed re­li­gious­ly.

Joseph col­lects a month­ly $1,300 dis­abil­i­ty as­sis­tance grant af­ter be­ing shot in his low­er left leg dur­ing a hunt­ing ex­er­cise sev­er­al years ago. He was deemed un­fit to work.

Months ago, Joseph ap­plied for a hous­ing re­pair grant to re­place his roof which has sev­er­al leaks but has re­ceived no feed­back.

The $410 food card he en­joyed was tak­en from him, as he strug­gled to make ends meets.

“This has left a sour taste in my mouth,” he said.

An avid sup­port­er of Ron­don, Joseph said he in­tends to switch his al­le­giance to the UNC be­cause the PNM has been hope­less.

“This will be my first time vot­ing for the UNC. The PNM not do­ing noth­ing for any­body,” Joseph said.

'Politi­cians have to stop their wicked­ness against the poor'

In the elec­toral dis­trict of Ve­ga de Oropouche which was won by UNC’s can­di­date Anil Juter­am in 2016, res­i­dent Ronald Cud­joe said nei­ther UNC or PNM will get his vote this time around.

Juter­am will come up against PNM’s Ravi Lakhan, a for­mer UNC can­di­date.

In the 2016 elec­tion, Cud­joe vot­ed for Juter­am who he claimed has done noth­ing to up­lift the liv­ing stan­dards in their squat­ting com­mu­ni­ty,

The com­mu­ni­ty has no pipe-borne wa­ter and prop­er roads, lacked jobs and they are still await­ing reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion.

“Politi­cians have to stop their wicked­ness against the poor and needy. While the UNC and PNM fight­ing each oth­er peo­ple suf­fer­ing,” Cud­joe said.

Cud­joe plans to with­hold his vote.

“They left our Trea­sury dry. They squan­dered tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey,” Cud­joe said.

Cud­joe’s sis­ter Rhon­da, who lives a short dis­tance away, called on cit­i­zens to wake up and stop blind­ly sup­port­ing par­ties and vot­ing along eth­nic lines.

“The small man, the poor man has to re­alise they are on­ly be­ing used and abused by politi­cians to get votes. Af­ter elec­tion you have to fight up to sur­vive. You don’t see or hear from them.”

Rhon­da, a sin­gle moth­er of six ad­mit­ted she sup­port­ed the UNC who turned their backs on her.

For months she could not land her­self a job and was de­nied a food card.

She re­cent­ly ob­tained a tem­po­rary work.

“I start to get smart. I not vot­ing for no blast­ed body. I sup­port­ing the UNC for years and I still catch­ing my ne­nen. All I have faced was dis­ap­point­ments,” Rhon­da said.

Blake Av­enue, Robin­son Street res­i­dents re­joic­ing

On Fri­day, the smell of fresh as­phalt per­vad­ed Blake Av­enue, Robin­son Street #1 and sev­er­al branch roads at Damarie Hill, San­gre Grande, as a gang of men op­er­at­ing a fleet of heavy equip­ment was busy con­duct­ing a paving ex­er­cise.

The PNM’s can­di­date for this dis­trict is Eliz­a­beth Whar­ton who is fight­ing UNC’s Nas­sar Ho­sein.

Large red flags tied on­to elec­tric­i­ty poles and buntings draped on chain link fences in­di­cat­ed that the com­mu­ni­ty was a PNM strong­hold.

The paving cre­at­ed ex­cite­ment among res­i­dents.

The sight of the new road was enough for res­i­dent Kardell Guer­ra to ad­mit that he would vote for the PNM.

“The PNM has been get­ting it (job) done. They will sure­ly get my vote. This is a big plus for the com­mu­ni­ty and the PNM,” Guer­ra said.

“It feel­ing like Christ­mas in here.”

Paving works al­so con­tin­ued full speed ahead at PNM con­trolled area—Damarie Hill.

At Rail­way Road #2 res­i­dents voiced dis­plea­sure about a con­trac­tor paving over a leak­ing pipeline days ago.

Wa­ter from the leak­ing pipeline has be­gun to push through the as­phalt, drain­ing on­to the road.

Thank­ful for the new road, one res­i­dent who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty said he ad­vised the con­trac­tor that they should have al­lowed WASA to re­pair the leak and then pave but they ig­nored him.

He feared the leak would un­der­mine the road­way.

“I hope they did not hasti­ly pave the road to get votes,” he re­marked.

Res­i­dent and taxi dri­ver Michael Ram­roop said the paving was long in com­ing.

“The road had reached a stage of dis­re­pair. We are thank­ful…hap­py that we get a new road. We suf­fered for too long. Hun­dreds will ben­e­fit.”

Ram­roop opt­ed not to say who he will vote for.

The on­go­ing paving made res­i­dents in the squat­ting com­mu­ni­ty of Va­len­cia, which fell un­der PNM’s coun­cilor Si­mone Gill dis­trict, green with en­vy.

They felt that the Pine Av­enue and Oropouche Road which had nev­er been paved and had pools of wa­ter should have been giv­en some ur­gent at­ten­tion.

Vil­lagers Brit­ney Sel­l­i­er and Bob­by Singh said taxis dri­vers some­times re­fused to work in the area be­cause the road is in a mess.

Res­i­dent Car­la Thomas said she would vote for the PNM if their roads are paved.

BOX

Ron­don de­nies paving for votes

Chair­man of the SGRC Ter­ry Ron­don has de­nied that state funds are be­ing used on projects to woo PNM sup­port­ers for the LGE.

Ron­don was re­spond­ing to UNC’s To­co/San­gre Grande con­stituen­cy co­or­di­na­tor Joseph Toney who claimed that the cor­po­ra­tion has been us­ing tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey as part of their elec­tion ma­chin­ery to gar­ner votes.

Ques­tioned about the in­creased paving ex­er­cis­es days be­fore the LGE, Ron­don said the cor­po­ra­tion re­cent­ly re­ceived fund­ing to un­der­take de­vel­op­men­tal projects in the re­gion.

"The re­leas­ing of the un­spent bal­ances...so we are con­tin­u­ing where we left out. We were sup­posed to do the work since four months ago. That mon­ey be­longs to the peo­ple. We had a back­log (of work), we did not get enough mon­ey to do it, but we got it now.”

In the San­gre Grande area alone, Ron­don said 28 roads that fell un­der the cor­po­ra­tion's purview were list­ed to be paved, but could not say what was the bud­get­ed al­lo­ca­tion for this ex­er­cise, in­clud­ing how much was spent on box drains, pave­ments and in­fra­struc­tur­al works re­cent­ly un­der­tak­en.

"I don't have that fig­ure now."

In the last two weeks, Ron­don said paving works have been on­go­ing in San­gre Grande North­west, To­co and Damarie Hill.

Some streets in Cu­mu­to, Tamana and Ve­ga de Oropouche were al­so resur­faced.

He said the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port has been do­ing its share of paving as well.

Ques­tioned if the paving fren­zy was an elec­tion ploy by the cor­po­ra­tion to gar­ner votes, Ron­don said "any­thing that you do they will say it is for elec­tion."

Peo­ple with a sober mind, Ron­don said, will see the ben­e­fits of their hard work and com­mit­ment to the peo­ple.

"The cor­po­ra­tion has no funds. I would not take any­thing from the cor­po­ra­tion to win any votes."

He al­so dis­missed al­le­ga­tions that the SGRC cor­po­ra­tion and URP have re­cent­ly of­fered jobs to woo PNM vot­ers.

The cor­po­ra­tion, he said, has been giv­ing peo­ple nor­mal ten-days work.

Ron­don as­sured that work giv­en out is shared equal­ly be­tween PNM and UNC peo­ple.

"There is no pol­i­tics here with me. I can­not on­ly give PNM peo­ple. Not over my dead body."

Days ago, Ron­don said so­cial ser­vices were of­fered to res­i­dents in far-flung Matelot.

Ron­don ex­pressed con­fi­dence that the PNM can cap­ture the cor­po­ra­tion’s eight elec­toral dis­tricts on De­cem­ber 2 as a re­sult of their three years of per­for­mance.

If the cor­po­ra­tion ends up with a 4-4 tie sim­i­lar to what hap­pened in the 2016 LGE, Ron­don said he would use his cast­ing vote again to win con­trol of the cor­po­ra­tion.

"I will do it once it is right. I am not fight­ing for pow­er...I am fight­ing for what is right. And what is right is putting my cast­ing vote. I love help­ing peo­ple."

BOX

Toney: It's an ob­scene use of tax­pay­ers' mon­ey to win votes.

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress co­or­di­na­tor for the To­co/San­gre Grande con­stituen­cy Joseph Toney has ac­cused the PNM of a paving spree days be­fore the LGE to win the mar­gin­al SGRC.

Toney is one of the par­ty’s ac­tivists who has been cam­paign­ing on the ground to bring home vic­to­ry for the UNC.

"The PNM, des­per­ate at this nine­ty-ninth hour has gone on a paving spree in the San­gre Grande North­west elec­toral dis­trict is sim­ply to buy votes. It's a bare and bold­face and ob­scene use of tax­pay­ers' mon­ey to win votes. Why now? In the height of the rainy sea­son, roads are be­ing grad­ed and dug up to make way for paving."

Toney ex­pressed wor­ry at the rapid pace of the paving, de­scrib­ing it as a "mad ex­er­cise" by PNM had em­barked up­on.

"It is pass low. It's dis­grace­ful...that a par­ty that claimed it­self to be get­ting it done at this last minute they are try­ing to vir­tu­al­ly bribe the elec­torate with mat­ters that tax­pay­ers would have to be con­cerned about....with how their funds are be­ing used.”

Some res­i­dents com­plained that in dig­ging up and re­mov­ing the top lay­er of some roads by the con­trac­tors, the foun­da­tion of their homes had been af­fect­ed.

"It's just a mad scram­ble to get votes. And no one knows the qual­i­ty of work they are do­ing. We don't know if the jobs will be good be­cause they are do­ing it in the rainy sea­son."

When work is rushed and shod­di­ly done, Toney said cit­i­zens would pay a heavy price.

"In the sense, the road­way would not stand. The roads would re­turn to its orig­i­nal state.”

Toney said they al­so heard about a heavy dis­tri­b­u­tion of food cards in the Cu­mu­to/Tamana area.

"I was told al­so that for the URP they are not giv­ing out not ten days but 20 days. So when we go on our walk­a­bouts young peo­ple are telling us that the PNM peo­ple passed by and are of­fer­ing them 20 days."

To­mor­row: Here what Work Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan says about shod­dy road work in Grande re­gion