Fire­fight­ers and the po­lice were kept busy yes­ter­day morn­ing with sev­er­al fiery protests over bad roads in the Rousil­lac, Fyz­abad and La Brea ar­eas.

De­spite three res­i­dents be­ing ar­rest­ed and charged with lit­ter­ing, res­i­dents pledged to con­tin­ue protest­ing un­til re­pair works com­mence.

In Rousil­lac, al­most the en­tire length of Grant Road was blocked off and a non-func­tion­ing elec­tric­i­ty pole was cut down. Fire­fight­ers used foam in some ar­eas to quell the rag­ing fires.

Res­i­dent Mar­lene Sankar said those in the com­mu­ni­ty were an­gry and frus­trat­ed.

“The res­i­dents of Grants Road are very an­gry. We need the road to be fixed. In 2020, they did work on the road af­ter fiery protests, that is why we have to be here again to do the said thing, protest.”

She said some school bus dri­vers have re­fused to work in the area and those that do charge ex­tra mon­ey.

Sankar claimed mo­torists are forced to do dai­ly re­pairs to their ve­hi­cles. An­oth­er is­sue, she said, is flood­ing due to poor drainage.

“Ro­han Sinanan need to find his (ex­ple­tive used) here. This is not the last protest. I think Point Fortin protest­ed and their road fix al­ready. We need the same thing in Grants Road,” she de­mand­ed.

Clint Ar­joon, a busi­ness­man and res­i­dent of Mon De­sir, com­plained busi­ness­es are be­ing af­fect­ed.

“Busi­ness own­ers are suf­fer­ing be­cause cus­tomers can­not reach to them. It has been ex­pressed by cus­tomers ‘no, we not com­ing down there the road too bad’ and we have been los­ing busi­ness,” Ar­joon said.

Mon De­sir coun­cil­lor Der­rick Bowen ex­plained that Grants Road is a main artery from the new Point Fortin high­way and there were craters as deep as two feet. He al­so said be­cause of the high­way works, the drainage sys­tem in the area has been dam­aged.

Bowen said the Works Min­istry in­di­cat­ed to him that a con­trac­tor was award­ed a con­tract to re­pair Grants Road sev­er­al months ago.

“But, there’s the prob­lem, there is no bi­tu­men in the coun­try. You tell me why we don’t have bi­tu­men in this coun­try? So, what are the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go to do? Light fire, protest, cause dis­rup­tion be­cause you are not get­ting through in the diplo­mat­ic man­ner.”

Ota­heite/Rousil­lac coun­cil­lor Jared Mo­hammed claimed that in 2020 dur­ing phone con­ver­sa­tions with Min­is­ter Sinanan, he promised that Grants Road would be main­tained dur­ing the high­way con­struc­tion.

“We are call­ing on the Min­is­ter to keep to this word and treat the cit­i­zens of Grants Road, Rousil­lac, as peo­ple too be­cause they pay tax­es,” he said.

Mo­hammed claimed that since 2 am, the po­lice were in var­i­ous ar­eas “in­tim­i­dat­ing” res­i­dents.

At­tempts to reach Min­is­ter Sinanan for com­ment were un­suc­cess­ful.