Dis­grun­tled vil­lagers of Gran Cou­va re­main di­vid­ed when it comes to tak­ing protest ac­tion to get the road­ways in their com­mu­ni­ty re­paired.

On Tues­day, the vil­lagers demon­strat­ed for the sec­ond straight day. They blocked Cameron Road with burn­ing tyres and oth­er de­bris. The road­way in front of San Co­co Road was al­so blocked with burn­ing de­bris. Po­lice ar­rived on the scene short­ly af­ter 6 am.

Vil­lager Matthew Fuller­ton said they are fed up with the politi­cians who are not do­ing any­thing to rep­re­sent them.

“We have two MPs here, one for Tabaquite and one for Ca­roni Cen­tral, I don't know if they dead or if they liv­ing but is time we get some­thing done and we plead­ing to the Min­is­ter of Works, Mr Ro­han Sinanan to come and do some­thing for we be­cause we chil­dren see­ing trou­ble, the el­der­ly see­ing trou­ble and the com­mu­ni­ty see­ing trou­ble.”

Vil­lagers have had to use Cameron Road as an al­ter­nate route to get to var­i­ous parts of Gran Cou­va since the ma­jor road­way col­lapsed in No­vem­ber 2022. Fuller­ton said some of the busi­ness op­er­a­tions have shut down. He said, “The politi­cians not do­ing any­thing for we, we nev­er see none of them, no PNM, no UNC, no coun­cil­lor, I don’t know if the politi­cians are liv­ing."

He said the com­mu­ni­ty is so small that politi­cians do not see their votes as im­por­tant to win­ning at the polls.

Janelle Joseph, an­oth­er res­i­dent of the area, said there are nu­mer­ous WASA leaks on the road that are caus­ing the land­slides to wors­en. Joseph said par­ents must pay more for trans­porta­tion to get their chil­dren to school.

How­ev­er res­i­dent Ste­vie Harold said the protest was po­lit­i­cal and was putting pres­sure on work­ing peo­ple and stu­dents who have to use the on­ly road out of the com­mu­ni­ty.

Harold said “This is strict­ly po­lit­i­cal. We un­der­stand the road gone, I would glad if the road fix, we have no oth­er ac­cess road, the on­ly good ac­cess road we have all yuh burn­ing it now to de­stroy it, all yuh doh like the vil­lagers, I say this is pol­i­tics and pol­i­tics on­ly.”

Har­ry said work­ing peo­ple have to ac­count to man­age­ment at their work­place as to why they are late or ab­sent.

CT­TRC Chair­man Ryan Ram­per­sad said he will vis­it Cameron Road and Gran Cou­va Main Road on Fri­day with a tech­ni­cal team and he would in­vite the en­gi­neers from the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port.

“I would be look­ing to see if it is pos­si­ble to cre­ate a tem­po­rary pas­sage­way along the Gran Cou­va Main Road across the ma­jor land­slip. This may re­quire some pil­ing and tem­po­rary shoring and back­fill­ing. The Min­istry of Works needs to get in with their tech­ni­cal peo­ple and ar­rive at a more per­ma­nent so­lu­tion. We are ask­ing the MOWT to in­form the pub­lic how long it will take to un­der­take re­pairs. Every­one is in the dark."