Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

Ac­tivist Dr Wayne Kublals­ingh says the pro­posed Mon De­sir to Debe seg­ment of the Point Fortin high­way is an "atroc­i­ty" and is "shame­less." He said 1,000 acres of agri­cul­tur­al lands and 300 homes will be de­stroyed. He and two oth­er rep­re­sen­ta­tives are ex­pect­ed to meet with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to­day at 3.30 pm at the Par­lia­ment, Wa­ter­front Com­plex, Port-of-Spain. Kublals­ingh said she was the last bas­tion of in­tegri­ty in the Gov­ern­ment and that her min­is­ters were on­ly play­ing the fool.

Yes­ter­day, Kublals­ingh and about 80 res­i­dents who form the High­way Re-Route Move­ment, took their con­cerns out­side the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter (OPM) in St Clair. They said they were not leav­ing un­til they were giv­en a date and time to meet with the PM.

Up to 2 pm they were yet to de­liv­er a let­ter stat­ing their re­quest, and con­cerns for re-rout­ing the high­way. Around 4 pm, they man­aged to de­liv­er the let­ter and were told about to­day's meet­ing. Kublals­ingh said be­tween No­vem­ber 2010 and March this year, the move­ment had writ­ten about five let­ters to the PM but nev­er got a re­sponse. The Cab­i­net al­so held its week­ly meet­ing yes­ter­day at the OPM. Kublals­ingh told the me­dia that Gov­ern­ment al­so want­ed to set up a chem­i­cal plant, CariSal, which he said would pro­duce four chlo­rine-based projects in Point Lisas. He said: "We have come a long way be­cause this strug­gle has been go­ing on since 2005 with a high­way which they want to pass across the Oropouche La­goon, Mon De­sir to Debe sec­tion. "It is an atroc­i­ty. It's shame­less." The group said it want­ed to present its pro­pos­al for re-rout­ing the Mon De­sir to Debe sec­tion of the Gol­con­da to Mon De­sir High­way, which was one of two parts of the new high­way sys­tem pro­posed for the south-west penin­su­la.

Kublals­ingh said: "Af­ter hav­ing made many, many at­tempts to meet with the Prime Min­is­ter, in­clud­ing go­ing to her pri­vate res­i­dence, meet­ing with her key min­is­ters, meet­ing with her key ad­vis­ers, sub­mit­ting let­ters, tex­ting her ad­vis­ers; we have got an un­sat­is­fac­to­ry an­swer. "She has re­ferred us to Mr (Jack) Warn­er and back to Dr (Roodal) Mooni­lal, whose po­si­tions we al­ready know." One res­i­dent, Van­dana Bood­hai, said she was be­ing di­rect­ly af­fect­ed by the high­way. She said 13 com­mu­ni­ties would be af­fect­ed. "We are not against the Point Fortin high­way. There are two high­ways go­ing to Point Fortin. The first one we are com­plete­ly hap­py with but it is the sec­ond one that is de­stroy­ing 13 com­mu­ni­ties and we are beg­ging the Prime Min­is­ter to please hear our plight." The pro­test­ers sat on the pave­ment out­side the OPM pray­ing, show­ing their plac­ards, and chant­i­ng from 10.45 am.

Shar­ma wants to meet

Fyz­abad MP Chan­dresh Shar­ma who passed in his of­fi­cial ve­hi­cle around 1 pm came out and shook hands with Kublals­ingh.

How­ev­er, the pro­test­ers were not pleased to see him. Shar­ma told the me­dia he was pre­pared to meet with the res­i­dents to re­solve the is­sue. He said any­thing re­gard­ing State re­sources must be a pri­or­i­ty. But as he spoke, the group in­ten­si­fied their chants, and hurled abuse at the min­is­ter. Kublals­ingh lat­er said: "Mr Shar­ma told me we should come and see him at his con­stituen­cy of­fice. What a shame­less thing to say. Since 2005 we have writ­ten him at least five let­ters." He said they did not want a meet­ing with him but the PM be­cause she had to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the de­struc­tion of the com­mu­ni­ties.