RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Fed up of be­ing ne­glect­ed, res­i­dents of Low­er Salazar Trace, Point Fortin staged a protest on Fri­day call­ing for a to­tal repaving of their roads.

Hold­ing up plac­ards, the res­i­dents chant­ed, "Fix the Whole Road," as they called on the Min­istry of Works to pave their road now.

The pro­tes­tors stopped ve­hi­cles from pass­ing along the stretch and threat­ened to es­ca­late their demon­stra­tion if their de­mands were not met.

Spokesper­son Jaik­is­han Dook­er­an said it has been more than 40 years since the low­er end of Salazar Trace has been paved. 

The Up­per end of Salazar Trace, known as Phase One, has been paved three times, but ac­cord­ing to Dook­er­an, noth­ing has been done to fix the cracked roads, land­slip and drainage on the low­er end of the street.

"We be­lieve this is is dis­crim­i­na­tion and favouritism. Every time they come to fix, it's on­ly one half of the road that is fixed. The oth­er side is left un­done. We are be­ing told that the sec­ond phase will be com­plete when they fix the drains. Why don't they fin­ish the drains and do the en­tire road? We have se­nior cit­i­zens, the el­der­ly and chil­dren liv­ing here. We work our whole lives and con­tribute and we can­not have de­cent roads and wa­ter? This is un­ac­cept­able," he added.

Elsie Boodoo, 77, who lives in the last house at Salazar Trace said she has to spend $100 to get home.

"Taxi dri­vers don't like to work in here be­cause of the roads. If you get sick in here you have to pay $200 to hire a taxi. They say they can­not work here be­cause of the con­di­tion of the road. We want the whole road fixed. Its 50 years they have not saved it and we are fed up," she added.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Thack­oor Ko­la­hal the low­er part of Salazar Trace was re­paired in 1982.

"We are tax­pay­ers and some of us pay heavy tax­es yet we can­not en­joy a sim­ple thing like ac­cess to our homes," he said.

Ko­la­hal not­ed that WASA has dug up the road many times but has not fixed it prop­er­ly. 

The res­i­dents called on their MP Nicole Ol­livierre to make rep­re­sen­ta­tion to have their roads fixed.
Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Ol­livierre said she was in Par­lia­ment and will is­sue a state­ment lat­er.

UNC can­di­date for Point Fortin Sen­a­tor Tahar­qa Obi­ka said the protests were the re­sult of eco­nom­ic ne­glect in the area. He said he found out about the protest while on his way to de­liv­er ham­pers. Obi­ka said the res­i­dents main con­cern was that promis­es were made to pave the en­tire road but on­ly two kilo­me­tres were paved.

"Po­lice are here and no one can ad­dress any con­cerns. We want the Min­is­ter of Works to an­swer the con­cerns of the res­i­dents," Obi­ka said.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Sinanan said that road fell un­der the ju­ris­dic­tion of the Point Fortin Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion.

"As in many oth­er roads, the Min­istry has been as­sist­ing. That road is an on­go­ing project and we have had to do work in phas­es," Sinanan said.

He ex­plained that paving be­gan on one area where con­crete works in­clud­ing drainage and cul­verts were com­plet­ed. Sinanan said when the con­crete work is com­plet­ed on the low­er end,  paving will be done there as well.

He said if paving was done with­out prop­er con­crete in­fra­struc­ture, the road will not last.