Kevon Felmine

Work on the con­tentious Debe to Mon De­sir seg­ment of the Gol­con­da to Point Fortin High­way con­tin­ues de­spite an agree­ment be­tween Gov­ern­ment and the Joint Con­sul­ta­tive Coun­cil (JCC) and oth­er groups that all work should stop for 60 days.

On Mon­day, the JCC was giv­en a man­date to re­view all doc­u­ments pro­vid­ed by the Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­tur­al De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (Nid­co) and pro­duce a re­port with­in two months.

A con­di­tion of the agree­ment was work on that sec­tion of the high­way should stop. The meet­ing was aimed at re­solv­ing the im­passe be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and the High­way Re-route Move­ment head­ed by hunger-strik­er Dr Wayne Kublals­ingh.

How­ev­er, at around 2.30 pm yes­ter­day, when the T&T Guardian vis­it­ed Mon­teil Trace, Fyz­abad-on the way to Mon De­sir-sev­er­al ex­ca­va­tors and bull­doz­ers were clear­ing the land, while heavy-du­ty trucks were seen trans­port­ing equip­ment to the site.

As the me­dia crew neared the con­struc­tion site, one work­man or­dered us not to step on­to the work­site, say­ing the me­dia were bent on bring­ing a halt to the high­way con­struc­tion.

Min­utes lat­er, the an­noyed work­man made a phone call as he walked over to the ex­ca­va­tors and all work stopped.

At Berridge Trace, Mon De­sir, the pro­posed site of the Fyz­abad in­ter­change, OAS con­trac­tors were at work be­tween 1 pm and 2 pm yes­ter­day. Of­fi­cials at the site de­clined to speak on the is­sue.

Mon­teil Trace res­i­dent Man­da Shar­ma, whose home is next to the con­struc­tion site, said when she in­quired why work was still tak­ing place, the work­men told her they were giv­en per­mis­sion to keep work­ing.

Shar­ma said she lis­tened to the news on Mon­day night and was sur­prised on Tues­day morn­ing when she saw con­trac­tors work­ing on the site.

She said she did not want to move as it would dis­rupt the lives of her fam­i­ly, es­pe­cial­ly her chil­dren.

At Berridge Trace, where con­trac­tors di­vert­ed traf­fic on­to an oil­sand-paved road, res­i­dents were con­cerned in­stead about how soon they would be paid for their prop­er­ties so they could move.

Amar­nath Ram­soon­dars­ingh said peo­ple had been wait­ing for the high­way for a long time and it would ben­e­fit every­one in the com­mu­ni­ty. He said stop­ping the work would on­ly de­lay a project which should have been com­plet­ed many years ago.

But the con­tin­u­ing works seem­ing­ly con­tra­dict the out­come of Gov­ern­ment's meet­ing with civ­il so­ci­ety groups.

Con­tact­ed for an ex­pla­na­tion yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er at the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture Tiffany Richards said the doc­u­ment signed by civ­il so­ci­ety group lead­ers and gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials stat­ed: "Works will con­tin­ue on sites of the high­way re­leased to the con­trac­tor."

Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Eman­nuel George and Nid­co pres­i­dent Dr Car­son Charles could not be reached for com­ment yes­ter­day.