Charles Kong Soo

Res­i­dents of Nel­son and George Streets in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day staged a fiery demon­stra­tion, block­ing the road with burn­ing tyres and de­bris to protest what they de­scribed as Gov­ern­ment's "bro­ken promis­es" of bet­ter liv­ing con­di­tions and jobs.

Res­i­dents dragged out old mat­tress­es, ap­pli­ances and tyres, placed them in the mid­dle of up­per Nel­son and George Streets and set them alight dur­ing the protest around 1 pm. Po­lice were quick­ly on the scene and fire ten­ders from the Wright­son Road head­quar­ters ex­tin­guished the dou­ble blaze.

George Street res­i­dent In­grid Payn­ter said, "This is about the peo­ple of George and Nel­son Street want­i­ng bet­ter con­di­tions and jobs. "The Gov­ern­ment came in here two weeks ago with a big PR promis­ing jobs with URP, CEPEP, promis­ing to re­fur­bish our com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre and bas­ket­ball court for our chil­dren.

"We told them specif­i­cal­ly we don't want any big PR be­cause, you know, it's all about pol­i­tics, and noth­ing has been done since."

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er made a vis­it to the area on Sep­tem­ber 30 to bro­ker a peace deal be­tween two war­ring gangs and re­turned with a team of Cab­i­net min­is­ters com­pris­ing Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Em­manuel George, So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Glen Ra­mad­hars­ingh, Hous­ing Min­is­ter Roodal Mooni­lal, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Su­ruj Ram­bachan and Pas­tor Win­ston Cuffie to lis­ten to the plight of res­i­dents on Oc­to­ber 2.

A Nel­son Street res­i­dent said: "The prob­lem is the Gov­ern­ment not do­ing any­thing for the poor man out here. The build­ings are not main­tained by the Gov­ern­ment, wa­ter leaks from all the roofs and the wiring is over 20 year old." Payn­ter said if the Gov­ern­ment want­ed to re­duce crime in the area it must help the peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly the young men.

"This is our plight to­day and we will con­tin­ue do­ing it un­til some­body lis­tens to us, be­cause George and Nel­son Streets are the heart­beat of Port-of-Spain and they can't treat us light­ly but with re­spect."