Sascha Wil­son

De­spite a heat­ed con­fronta­tion be­tween a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress coun­cil­lor and a WASA po­lice on Tues­day over the burn­ing of tyres to protest bad road con­di­tions at Har­ris Vil­lage, South Oropouche, res­i­dents were un­daunt­ed. In­stead, they staged their fiery protest at an­oth­er lo­ca­tion a short dis­tance away.

Av­o­cat/San Fran­cique North coun­cil­lor Dood­nath Mayrhoo, who led the pro­test­ers along with oth­er UNC coun­cil­lors, was about to light the tyres near a WASA work­site along the main road near Berridge Trace when a WASA of­fi­cer in­ter­vened.

At­tempts by Mayrhoo to set fire to the tyres and throw them across the road were thwart­ed by the of­fi­cer, who in­sist­ed he would not al­low him to burn tyres at that lo­ca­tion.

They en­gaged in a ver­bal ex­change and a jos­tle, with Mayhroo and the of­fi­cer kick­ing the tyres on and off the road like foot­balls. One per­son joked that it ap­peared as though they were in a foot­ball match.

The tyres were even­tu­al­ly loaded back on­to the tray of a van and tak­en low­er down the road where the protest con­tin­ued.

Mayrhoo com­plained that the ac­tion was nec­es­sary be­cause res­i­dents, mo­torists and busi­ness own­ers were ad­verse­ly af­fect­ed by the road con­di­tions. He said WASA po­lice should have been more un­der­stand­ing of the sit­u­a­tion.

While they are hap­py WASA is re­plac­ing the wa­ter lines, he said the com­pa­ny had left the road in a de­plorable state.

He com­plained, “We had Labour Day two days ago. I was promised by a WASA of­fi­cial that this road would have been re­stored in time for Labour Day, it wasn’t done. Every day I call him is to­day, to­mor­row, next week, the week af­ter, rain falling, we not get­ting the mix and this is how they treat the cit­i­zens of Fyz­abad.

Avocat/San Francique North councillor Doodnath Mayrhoo, right and residents of Harris Village, South Oropouche, protest the poor conditions along the Fyzabad Main Road yesterday.

RISHI RAGOONATH

“We are fed up. It is tak­ing a toll on busi­ness in the area, peo­ple are look­ing for al­ter­na­tive routes to pass. Busi­ness­es are not get­ting the sales they usu­al­ly get. Mo­torists are pay­ing a hefty price with wear and tear on their ve­hi­cles on this road.”

He called on the Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter to en­sure WASA fix­es the road.

“I am call­ing on the failed Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties, Mr Mar­vin Gon­za­les, to fix the bloody road and get down to do­ing your job,” he said.

He said there were oth­er ar­eas in South Oropouche that were dug up by WASA and left in de­plorable states.

Em­pathis­ing with the res­i­dents, Fyz­abad MP Lack­ram Bo­doe said the line re­place­ment project along that road start­ed two years ago but it was be­ing done in parts.

Not­ing that he has re­ceived sev­er­al com­plaints from his con­stituents about the road con­di­tions, Bo­doe said, “It is pre­pos­ter­ous and to­tal­ly un­ac­cept­able that a short piece of road is tak­ing so long to re­pair. I un­der­stand that they have leave a lil time for what you call the wa­ter pres­sure test­ing, but this is tak­ing months and re­al­ly and tru­ly I think the res­i­dents are fed up.”

Fol­low­ing the protest, the pro­test­ers doused the flames and re­moved the de­bris them­selves.

A man throws a bucket of water on burning tyres set by protesting residents of Harris Village, South Oropouche during their protest yesterday, over poor road conditions in the area.

RISHI RAGOONATH

WASA: Re­pair work to be com­plet­ed Thurs­day

In a state­ment, WASA said per­ma­nent road restora­tion works along the South Oropouche Main Road, Av­o­cat, are sched­uled to be com­plet­ed on Thurs­day.

The au­thor­i­ty said these works were ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed over the last week­end but was de­layed due to in­clement weath­er con­di­tions, as well as the chal­lenges in com­plet­ing the cus­tomer con­nec­tions which re­quired ex­ca­va­tion works.

WASA said it “has en­gaged in very clear and open com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the lo­cal gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tive for the area and af­fect­ed res­i­dents on the chal­lenges ex­pe­ri­enced dur­ing the project, the progress of the project and the au­thor­i­ty’s com­mit­ment to com­plete the project as a pri­or­i­ty. There­fore, these road restora­tion works mark the end of this high pri­or­i­ty project for in­stal­la­tion of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 420 me­tres of eight-inch di­am­e­ter PVC pipeline along the South Oropouche Main Road, Av­o­cat and giv­en these cir­cum­stances, the protest ac­tion which un­fold­ed is un­for­tu­nate.”

The au­thor­i­ty said it has suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed all the pipeline in­stal­la­tion works and the fi­nal two trans­fer of ser­vice con­nec­tions were ex­e­cut­ed.

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