Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Now that the rainy sea­son has start­ed, res­i­dents of Oli Mo­hammed Trace in Bar­rack­pore, fear­ful of flood­ing, are plead­ing with the au­thor­i­ties to re­sume con­struc­tion on a bridge in their com­mu­ni­ty.

“We are like out­casts in the back here. Like we have no val­ue and that is not right,” said Sharmi­la Hamil­ton.

Af­ter protest­ing for a new bridge a few years ago, the Rur­al De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny award­ed a con­tract in 2021 and work start­ed but was stopped in Feb­ru­ary 2022.

In the in­ter­im, a dirt road and a tem­po­rary bridge were built for the res­i­dents. How­ev­er, the tem­po­rary struc­ture is di­lap­i­dat­ed and some­times am­bu­lances, util­i­ty ve­hi­cles and garbage trucks can­not pass.

Res­i­dents said a light pole got up­root­ed on Fri­day and it took T&TEC about six hours to re­pair it be­cause the ve­hi­cle could not pass over the bridge.

Hamil­ton said there are sev­er­al el­der­ly and sick­ly peo­ple in the com­mu­ni­ty.

“It has old peo­ple liv­ing here my moth­er and broth­er for in­stance. My broth­er, he can­not walk. My moth­er is a heart pa­tient. Every two, three weeks am­bu­lance have to come to take she to the hos­pi­tal. It is dif­fi­cult for them to come in here. Some­times we have to tote them or put them in the car and bring them out to the am­bu­lance,” she said.

Par­bat­tee Ram­per­sad, 71, said she is afraid to walk on the bridge, but she has no oth­er choice. The par­tial­ly blind woman said: “I re­cent­ly had surgery on my foot and with this one eye, it is very bad for me. I can­not see the bridge prob­a­bly so I does be in chaos. I does pray to God to take me over and bring me back safe.”

Res­i­dents com­plained that they spend as much as $60 on taxi fares.

Shamin Sinanan com­plained: “Rain about to come. Here is a flood­ed area, the bridge go­ing to cov­er. How peo­ple go­ing to pass?

“Cast it and let we pass. We need to pass. If they don’t do noth­ing, we go­ing to take up this plant ( from the tem­po­rary struc­ture) and put it there (new struc­ture). If no­body not do­ing noth­ing. We go­ing to do some­thing.”

Sinanan said the res­i­dent who owns the land on which the tem­po­rary road and bridge are lo­cat­ed wants to re­claim the land to build a house. Sinanan com­plained that nei­ther MP Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar nor Coun­cil­lor Kheymwet­tie Chu­lan has tried to as­sist them.

“Kam­la. Who is the MP? Kam­la for we area. Sor­ry to say they could fix oth­er places but for they own peo­ple they can’t fix. Don’t talk about the coun­cil­lor, every month they com­ing, noth­ing do­ing,” she said.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Coun­cil­lor Chu­lan said since the work stopped in 2022 she has been rais­ing this mat­ter in coun­cil meet­ings.

“I have al­ways as­sist­ed with the re­pairs to the wood­en bridge. Just re­cent­ly when res­i­dents con­tact­ed me and said the garbage truck couldn’t pass the Cor­po­ra­tion did some work on the wood­en bridge, so I don’t know how they can say that I have not as­sist­ed them,” she said.

Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Faris Al-Rawi promised to look in­to the mat­ter.