RALPH BAN­WARIE

The plea for elec­tric­i­ty by res­i­dents of Plum Road, Man­zanil­la, for more than 60 years con­tin­ues to fall on deaf ears.

Sev­er­al fam­i­lies com­plained that their chil­dren are forced to use kerosene lamps, can­dles and flam­beaux to com­plete their home work. Those at­tend­ing sec­ondary school are awake for long hours study­ing and the smoke com­ing from the lamps and flam­beaux is af­fect­ing their health, es­pe­cial­ly their eyes, par­ents com­plained.

Al­i­son Ali, spokesman for the vil­lagers said, "Can you imag­ine that in this mod­ern day and age chil­dren have to study un­der kerosene lamps, flam­beaux and can­dles...this could nev­er be fair to our chil­dren, they de­serve bet­ter. These tra­di­tion­al method of light­ing in our homes is a fire risk and a health risk to our chil­dren."

Ali said on­ly a few days ago, a bed sheet came in­to con­tact with a lit can­dle and the house caught afire. Vil­lagers used a buck­et brigade to save the house, oc­cu­pied by a moth­er and her four chil­dren, from be­ing com­plete­ly de­stroyed. She said most of the par­ents are sin­gle moth­ers who pay tax­es like every­one else.

In ad­di­tion, she said, the chil­dren of Plum Road are de­prived of mod­ern elec­tri­cal ameni­ties such as tele­vi­sion and com­put­er. "They can­not look at a show or the news, they are iso­lat­ed from all these priv­i­leges and left be­hind due to no elec­tric­i­ty in their com­mu­ni­ty.

"Their uni­form for school is pre­pared with iron heaters, which is heat­ed on a coal pot. It is very prim­i­tive meth­ods in which our chil­dren are grow­ing up. At school they are em­bar­rassed, when asked about their favourite tele­vi­sion show by their friends

“You know what hurts us at Old Plum Road?" Ali asked. She said they are liv­ing on free­hold lands hand­ed down to them by their par­ents and the fight for a sup­ply of elec­tric­i­ty has been on­go­ing.

She ar­gued that peo­ple who oc­cu­py state lands il­le­gal­ly get elec­tric­i­ty and wa­ter con­nec­tions in weeks while peo­ple who are op­er­at­ing legal­ly have to suf­fer. "What is their process in ob­tain­ing these es­sen­tial com­modi­ties in such a quick time while peo­ple on their own land wait­ing for over 60 years to get elec­tric­i­ty can­not have ac­cess to this com­mod­i­ty? We are on­ly get­ting promis­es and run around by dif­fer­ent agen­cies.”

Ali said more then 60 years ago, when her grand­fa­ther was alive, they have been mak­ing re­quests both ver­bal­ly and by way of let­ters to their coun­cil­lors, MPs and oth­er agen­cies but with­out any suc­cess.

The clos­est they have ever reached in get­ting the process start­ed through the Na­tion­al Com­mis­sion for Self Help was when Kesh­war Ma­haraj, for­mer chair­man of the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion was in of­fice, they said.

Their hopes were shat­tered when Ma­haraj and the coun­cil­lor for the area demit­ted of­fice.

“Politi­cians just don’t care about peo­ple who live in the rur­al parts of Trinidad," Ali said.

"This is very frus­trat­ing and dis­gust­ing to burgess­es who have been fight­ing for this ba­sic com­mod­i­ty for over 60 years."

Res­i­dents said chair­man of the cor­po­ra­tion, Ter­ry Ron­don told them to reap­ply to start the process.

What the min­istry says:

When con­tact­ed, the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties said it as­sists low in­come house­holds and com­mu­ni­ties in ac­cess­ing an elec­tric­i­ty sup­ply. They said a let­ter of Cap­i­tal Con­tri­bu­tion cost from T&TEC out­lin­ing cost of elec­tri­cal in­fra­struc­ture eg, poles, trans­form­ers, low volt­age lines etc is need­ed for the ap­pli­ca­tion process. It takes a lit­tle while for the min­istry and T&TEC to as­sess the ap­pli­ca­tion. "If the per­son is qual­i­fied for the pro­gramme, a site vis­it is con­duct­ed to es­ti­mate the cost. How­ev­er, if the per­son does not qual­i­fy, or the job is cost­ly, the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties would then pro­vide as­sis­tance through their So­lar Pan­el Pro­gramme."