Shas­tri Boodan

New Ch­agua­nas May­or Faaiq Mo­hammed plans to have con­sul­ta­tions be­fore he makes any ma­jor moves to solve the traf­fic prob­lems in Ch­agua­nas.

He made the com­ment yes­ter­day short­ly af­ter be­ing sworn-in to his new post at the Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia about his plans to deal with the traf­fic night­mare plagu­ing Ch­agua­nas for more than two decades, Mo­hammed said, “My plan to deal with traf­fic ba­si­cal­ly, is to have con­sul­ta­tion with ba­si­cal­ly the com­muters that com­mute on these road­ways on a fre­quent ba­sis as well as the Min­istry of Works and the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice as well, be­cause more than of­ten we keep for­get­ting to bring the com­muters to­geth­er for con­sul­ta­tion.”

Mo­hammed said he al­so plans to have con­sul­ta­tion with the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and the TTPS to deal with the prob­lem of il­le­gal im­mi­grants and crime plagu­ing the bor­ough.

When asked if he would al­low him­self to be di­rect­ed by the five Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment who are with­in the Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion, Mo­hammed said he has a good work­ing re­la­tion­ship with all MPs.

“My in­ten­tion is to work to­geth­er with them to bring bet­ter rep­re­sen­ta­tion to the peo­ple,” he said.

Mo­hammed said his first du­ty will be to chart a way for­ward for deal­ing with the sec­ond wave of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic that has hit the coun­try. The virus claimed five more lives yes­ter­day, tak­ing the over­all deaths to 27 and the over­all num­ber of pos­i­tive cas­es to 1,797.

Chaguanas Mayor Faaiq Mohammed, left, and outgoing mayor and current Chaguanas East MP Vandana Mohit bounce elbows during the swearing-in ceremony yesterday.

SHASTRI BOODAN

In his ad­dress to the coun­cil, Mo­hammed 32, who is al­so the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Char­lieville, thanked his con­stituents, fam­i­ly and Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for the faith and con­fi­dence placed in him.

“The way for­ward is to lis­ten and lead...I have al­ways been de­lib­er­ate in my ac­tions and have al­ways lis­tened to the peo­ple,” he said.

He said he was ex­cit­ed hav­ing at­tained the high­est po­lit­i­cal po­si­tion in Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment. He said his vi­sion is to see Ch­agua­nas grow in com­mer­cial and recre­ation­al ac­tiv­i­ty, while at the same time be­com­ing a hub for the de­vel­op­ment of young sports­men and women.

How­ev­er, no deputy may­or was elect­ed yes­ter­day.

Out­go­ing may­or Van­dana Mo­hit, who is now the Ch­agua­nas East Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, gave her bless­ings and of­fered her guid­ance to Mo­hammed.

Both Mo­hammed and Mo­hit both start­ed off their ca­reers in the po­lit­i­cal are­na over sev­en years ago.

Mo­hammed was elect­ed as coun­cil­lor for Char­lieville on an In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty tick­et in 2013. How­ev­er, dur­ing vot­ing for Ch­agua­nas may­or and deputy may­or on No­vem­ber 6, 2013, Mo­hammed chose to vote for Mo­hit, a UNC can­di­date, over the ILP’s Fal­isha Isa­hak.

This led to ten­sions be­tween Mo­hammed and then ILP leader Jack Warn­er and he even­tu­al­ly quit the par­ty.

Mo­hit said she hopes to get the new Min­istry of Youth De­vel­op­ment head­ed by Fitzger­ald Hinds to as­sist the young peo­ple of En­ter­prise who are in need of jobs and ed­u­ca­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties.