Sascha Wil­son

Con­cerned that over­grown bush­es along a main road are putting lives in dan­ger, Tor­tu­ga res­i­dents are call­ing on the au­thor­i­ties to have this mat­ter ur­gent­ly ad­dressed.

Res­i­dents com­plained that in some in­stances, the bush­es arch­ing over Cedar Hill Road on both sides are more than ten feet high, and due to the wind­ing land­scape of the road, it in­creas­es the risk of ac­ci­dents and al­so makes them easy tar­gets of crim­i­nals. 

They not­ed that the risk is greater at night since there are no street lights along the road, which spans two-and-a-half kilo­me­tres from the Solomon Ho­choy High­way to Tor­tu­ga Vil­lage. Res­i­dent Hazrath Ram­di­al said the bush­es are sup­posed to be main­tained every three months, but that has not been hap­pen­ing. He said the bush­es were last cut in No­vem­ber be­cause they had plead­ed with the au­thor­i­ties. 

Not­ing that the road al­so leads to oth­er com­mu­ni­ties, in­clud­ing Gas­par­il­lo, Gran Cou­va and Mayo, he com­plained, “This sit­u­a­tion is caus­ing ac­ci­dents and in­con­ve­nience to dri­vers; you have to pull aside.” 

On pre­vi­ous oc­ca­sions, he said, res­i­dents paid to main­tain the road. 

“The vil­lagers would get to­geth­er and buy gas; we will pay peo­ple to cut. I my­self, on at least eight or ten oc­ca­sions, would have come out, brought equip­ment, spon­sored labour and we tried to do what we could, but it is just be­com­ing too much for the few vol­un­teers. We are ask­ing the min­istry to do what they are sup­posed to be do­ing; please main­tain the road.”

Pas­tor Kirk Lochan, of the Tor­tu­ga Pen­te­costal Church, com­plained that they had to cur­tail their night ser­vices due to con­cern for the safe­ty of mem­bers who did not live in the com­mu­ni­ty. He said the com­mu­ni­ty coun­cil had con­tact­ed the min­istry sev­er­al times, but their com­plaints had fall­en on deaf ears.

“As a pas­tor in the church, I am very con­cerned for mem­bers and even res­i­dents in the area. We know it is a dan­ger and it is a haz­ard, es­pe­cial­ly right now with the African snail in the area. In the evening, there are a lot of African snails in the road be­cause of the bush­es. It’s def­i­nite­ly pos­ing a dan­ger and health risk ... We know the Min­is­ter of Health is con­cerned with the dengue sit­u­a­tion, and clear­ly we know this is a health haz­ard.”

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Monique Ram­sumair, said she al­most col­lid­ed with an­oth­er ve­hi­cle on the stretch on Mon­day. 

“On this stretch of road­way, you have a lot of cor­ners, so you have to be mind­ful be­cause you can­not see around the cor­ner, so you have to be a bit mind­ful when dri­ving be­cause you don’t know who is com­ing.” 

She said there have al­so been sev­er­al hi­jack­ings and rob­beries along the stretch.

The Min­istry of Works and Trans­port was con­tact­ed, but there was no re­sponse up to last evening.