RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Res­i­dents of Moru­ga are deny­ing al­le­ga­tions that they ver­bal­ly abused and chased away a Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture (MOWI) crew sent to as­sess and re­pair a large crater along Pe­nal Rock Road, even as Works Min­is­ter Jear­lean John says min­istry em­ploy­ees were threat­ened on three sep­a­rate oc­ca­sions.

John said the mat­ter has now been for­mal­ly re­port­ed to Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro.

The dis­pute fol­lows a Guardian Me­dia re­port high­light­ing res­i­dents’ con­cerns over a col­lapsed cul­vert and widen­ing de­pres­sion at the 23.1-kilo­me­tre mark of Pe­nal Rock Road, which they said posed a se­ri­ous dan­ger to mo­torists and pedes­tri­ans.

On Wednes­day, the min­istry ac­cused res­i­dents of re­mov­ing safe­ty bar­ri­ers, threat­en­ing work­ers and pre­vent­ing emer­gency re­pairs from be­ing car­ried out.

How­ev­er, speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, par­lour own­er Jer­von Web­ber, whose busi­ness is lo­cat­ed be­side the crater, ad­mit­ted he ques­tioned the qual­i­ty of the pro­posed re­pairs but de­nied threat­en­ing any­one.

“I told them they were not do­ing the prop­er re­pairs,” Web­ber said.

He said work­ers had be­gun plac­ing stones in­to the crater as part of tem­po­rary sta­bil­i­sa­tion works, but he feared the ma­te­r­i­al would ob­struct drainage and cause flood­wa­ters to en­ter his par­lour dur­ing heavy rain­fall.

“They start­ed patch­ing and throw­ing stones in the hole. My con­cern was that when rain falls, all the wa­ter would come in­to my shop.”

Web­ber in­sist­ed that res­i­dents did not chase the work­ers away.

“We nev­er chased them. No­body abused them,” he said.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Ava Morales, al­so re­ject­ed the min­istry’s claims.

“There was no chas­ing away or curs­ing of work­ers,” Morales said.

She ac­knowl­edged, how­ev­er, that min­istry of­fi­cials had been con­duct­ing as­sess­ment work far­ther along Pe­nal Rock Road be­fore res­i­dents con­tact­ed Guardian Me­dia to high­light the de­te­ri­o­rat­ing con­di­tion of the road­way.

John, how­ev­er, main­tained that min­istry em­ploy­ees were in­tim­i­dat­ed while car­ry­ing out their du­ties.

In a two-page let­ter dat­ed Ju­ly 15 to Com­mis­sion­er Gue­var­ro, the min­is­ter for­mal­ly re­port­ed what she de­scribed as threats and ver­bal abuse di­rect­ed at work­ers. She al­so re­quest­ed po­lice as­sis­tance to al­low re­pairs to con­tin­ue safe­ly.

“As Min­is­ter of Works and In­fra­struc­ture (MOWI), I write to for­mal­ly re­port an in­ci­dent in­volv­ing threats and ver­bal abuse di­rect­ed at Min­istry per­son­nel while car­ry­ing out emer­gency road­works at the 23.1 kilo­me­tre mark along Pe­nal Rock Road, Moru­ga, and to re­quest the as­sis­tance of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice in fa­cil­i­tat­ing the safe re­sump­tion of these works,” John wrote.

The min­is­ter said she had been ful­ly briefed on the in­ci­dent and con­sid­ered it a mat­ter re­quir­ing ur­gent at­ten­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to the let­ter, the min­istry first iden­ti­fied the road­way de­pres­sion dur­ing a rou­tine in­spec­tion on Ju­ly 13 af­ter a cul­vert col­lapsed be­neath the road fol­low­ing heavy rain­fall.

Tem­po­rary safe­ty mea­sures, in­clud­ing cau­tion tape and a bam­boo bar­ri­er, were in­stalled on Ju­ly 14 but, ac­cord­ing to the min­istry, were lat­er re­moved by res­i­dents.

John said work­ers re­turned on Ju­ly 15 to re­in­stall the bar­ri­ers and be­gin tem­po­rary re­in­state­ment works us­ing com­pact­ed ag­gre­gate, but were again con­front­ed.

She said work­ers re­port­ed be­ing ver­bal­ly abused and threat­ened to the ex­tent that they no longer felt safe and were with­drawn from the site.

The min­is­ter al­so told the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er that ag­gres­sion to­wards min­istry per­son­nel had be­come “a re­cur­ring chal­lenge” and stressed that “the pro­tec­tion of Min­istry per­son­nel is para­mount and non-ne­go­tiable.”

In her let­ter, John re­quest­ed that the mat­ter be treat­ed as a for­mal re­port be­cause the work su­per­vi­sor was re­luc­tant to make an of­fi­cial re­port “out of fear for their safe­ty.”

She al­so re­quest­ed po­lice pres­ence when tem­po­rary works re­sume and con­tin­ued po­lice sup­port through­out the project un­til re­pairs are com­plet­ed.

The min­istry has pro­posed tem­po­rary sta­bil­i­sa­tion of the dam­aged road­way while en­gi­neers de­sign a per­ma­nent re­place­ment for the failed cul­vert.

Mean­while, res­i­dents con­tin­ue to in­sist they want a per­ma­nent so­lu­tion, say­ing the dam­aged cul­vert has de­te­ri­o­rat­ed over time and re­mains a haz­ard to road users and near­by busi­ness­es.