Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan yes­ter­day called on con­stituents of To­co/San­gre Grande to fight back if the Op­po­si­tion tries to stop the $196 mil­lion Va­len­cia to To­co High­way road up­grade project which is be­ing man­aged by the Pro­gramme for Up­grad­ing Road Ef­fi­cien­cy.

The sod for the project was turned on Wednes­day by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, Sinanan and To­co/San­gre Grande MP Glen­da Jen­nings-Smith in Va­len­cia.

Ad­dress­ing guests, Sinanan said the road up­grade was im­per­a­tive due to the grow­ing num­ber of ve­hi­cles in T&T.

The road will pro­vide ac­cess to the pro­posed To­co Port of which pre­lim­i­nary de­signs have al­ready been com­plet­ed.

“This new road will link di­rect­ly to the Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way ex­ten­sion to Man­zanil­la cur­rent­ly be­ing built through an in­ter­change at Ojoe Road, just north of San­gre Grande,” Sinanan said.

The high­way starts at the Va­len­cia in­ter­sec­tion and ends on the To­co Main Road. It would help re­duce the trav­el­ling time for mo­torists from 90 to 40 min­utes.

Sinanan said short­ly af­ter turn­ing the sod for the $400 mil­lion Cu­mu­to to Man­zanil­la High­way, the 2017 project had to be halt­ed af­ter Fish­er­men and Friends of the Sea raised con­cerns about the high­way be­ing built on a buffer zone of the Aripo Sa­van­nas and took the mat­ter to court.

Af­ter a year-long court bat­tle, Sinanan said his min­istry was giv­en clear­ance by the Court of Ap­peal to con­tin­ue with the project last year.

“The project was de­layed for over a year sim­ply be­cause some el­e­ments who do not re­side in this part of the is­land thought that we do not de­serve bet­ter in­fra­struc­ture. That project went to the Privy Coun­cil, and fi­nal­ly, the min­istry was giv­en the okay to re­sume work,” Sinanan said.

In Jan­u­ary, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 150 Cu­mu­to res­i­dents were al­so giv­en no­tices to va­cate their lands, as their homes were in the di­rect path of the high­way.

“I ex­pect that some of these peo­ple will come back to stop this (new) project. You have to speak about it. If you want this project. If you want to get part of the coun­try...to stand proud to say that I am from the east­ern seaboard, this is the time that your voice has to be heard. Let us not al­low peo­ple who do not know who we are, where we live and what we want to come and tell us what is good for us. I ex­pect when they come you will make your voic­es heard,” Sinanan said.

Speak­ing to re­porters fol­low­ing the cer­e­mo­ny, Sinanan said the up­grade project was ap­proved by Cab­i­net last year and work be­gan a month ago.

The fi­nal cost of the project, Sinanan said will be de­ter­mined once com­plet­ed.

Asked if the re­al­i­sa­tion of the project de­pends on win­ning the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion, Sinanan re­spond­ed “you don’t gov­ern a coun­try based on win­ning an elec­tion. You gov­ern a coun­try for its im­prove­ments.”

Who­ev­er wins the next elec­tion, Sinanan said he hopes will con­tin­ue the project.

“I am very con­fi­dent that this Gov­ern­ment will be there in 2021, 2022 and 2023. I am sure this Gov­ern­ment will con­tin­ue the project.”

Sinanan ex­pects no land ac­qui­si­tion chal­lenges by home and busi­ness­es own­ers whose prop­er­ties may fall in the path of the project.

If any­one has to be re­lo­cat­ed, Sinanan said: “It’s not go­ing to be any sig­nif­i­cant amount.”

As for ven­dors who ply their trade along the high­way’s path, Sinanan said they were able to re­lo­cate one so far to the Namde­v­co mar­ket.

He as­sured his min­istry will try to min­imise all in­con­ve­niences caused.

Mean­while, pres­i­dent of the San­gre Grande Cham­ber of Com­merce Ri­car­do Mo­hammed yes­ter­day wel­comed the con­struc­tion of the road­way.

“This project will boost busi­ness for this area. We wel­come the traf­fic flow we will get from this. We look for­ward to this project,” said Mo­hammed, who at­tend­ed the cer­e­mo­ny.

Mo­hammed said the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty will do what­ev­er it can to im­prove de­vel­op­ment and growth in the north­east­ern re­gion.

—Shal­iza Has­sanali