KEVON FELMINE
kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

De­spite be­ing charged with ob­struct­ing work on the Solomon Ho­choy High­way Ex­ten­sion to Point Fortin (SHHEPF) project, High­way Reroute Move­ment (HRM) leader Dr Wayne Kublals­ingh says the group will ap­ply for an in­junc­tion to sus­pend work in Mon De­sir .

An a me­dia con­fer­ence at Camp Reroute along the Right of Way off Roots Av­enue Branch 1, Kublals­ingh claimed the Gov­ern­ment is vi­o­lat­ing the Land Ac­qui­si­tion Act as its con­trac­tor, Gen­er­al Earth Movers Ltd al­ready be­gan clear­ing lands which still be­longs to res­i­dents in the area. He said the group hired a Se­nior Coun­sel who should ap­ply to the high court this week.
Camp Reroute cur­rent­ly blocks part of the Right of Way along the con­tentious leg Debe-Mon De­sir seg­ment of the project. Kublals­ingh said the gov­ern­ment took lands from the Pri­am, Creese, Chaitoo and Ramjohn fam­i­lies’ with­out any com­pen­sa­tion. He asked jour­nal­ists to ques­tion Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley on whether he com­pen­sat­ed any landown­ers be­tween Debe and Mon De­sir for their lands.
“We are al­so go­ing to file an in­junc­tion against Works. We are go­ing to say ba­si­cal­ly that the gov­ern­ment is breach­ing the Land Ac­qui­si­tion Act and the EMA Act. We have a mat­ter be­fore Jus­tice James Aboud, who is sup­posed to rule on this mat­ter since Jan­u­ary last year and he has not ruled. The thing is in court. In the mean­time, we are go­ing to try to hold out here as long as pos­si­ble,” Kublals­ingh said.

Landown­er and HRM mem­ber Suresh Chaitoo said the State al­ready cleared the front of his prop­er­ty. Chaitoo said his protest was not on­ly about com­pen­sa­tion, but the gov­ern­ment’s dis­re­gard of the Re­port of the In­de­pen­dent Re­view Com­mit­tee of the Debe-Mon De­sir seg­ment of the San Fer­nan­do to Point Fortin High­way. The Com­mit­tee found there were sig­nif­i­cant short­com­ings which war­rant­ed fur­ther in­ter­ro­ga­tion. It rec­om­mend­ed that if the gov­ern­ment de­cid­ed to pro­ceed with the con­struc­tion of the Debe-Mon De­sir seg­ment, the draw­backs re­sult­ing from the in­ad­e­qua­cies of prop­er as­sess­ment of the like­ly im­pacts on the hu­man and nat­ur­al en­vi­ron­ment must first be de­ter­mined and re­solved.
Chaitoo said Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­tur­al De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (NID­CO), the project man­ag­er, failed to con­tact him re­gard­ing the ac­qui­si­tion of his land. He said the pre­vi­ous arrange­ments be­tween him­self and NID­CO ex­pired.
Al­though the HRM lost its le­gal chal­lenge to stop the re­sump­tion of work along the Debe-Mon De­sir seg­ment back in April, Kublals­ingh said they are ap­peal­ing the rul­ing, even if it has to reach the Privy Coun­cil.
He said, “With all re­spect to the Prime Min­is­ter, with all re­spect to his PNM col­leagues, he has been very treach­er­ous to us. He is fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of the last gov­ern­ment. He is do­ing it like Mooni­lal. He is do­ing it like Warn­er. I ex­pect­ed him to be a more prin­ci­pled man. 
“I would have ex­pect­ed him to fol­low the sci­ence and prin­ci­ple and stop this un­der­tak­ing, but he has done no such thing. There­fore, he will be de­feat­ed. He may not be de­feat­ed this elec­tion, but he will be de­feat­ed very short­ly be­cause you do not do those kinds of things. He is act­ing against the peo­ple’s lands, and com­mu­ni­ties of Trinidad & To­ba­go in favour of the con­trac­toc­ra­cy.”
Kublals­ingh said the Gov­ern­ment’s ac­tions pau­perised the HRM as they spent cost­ly le­gal fees over the years. Now he and mem­bers have to con­vert as­sets to con­tin­ue the bat­tle to save the not on­ly the com­mu­ni­ties but the ecol­o­gy of the area. He said they would not re­lent in stop­ping the gov­ern­ment from de­stroy­ing the re­main­ing for­est in the area.

Last May, Fyz­abad po­lice ar­rest­ed Kublals­ingh af­ter he al­leged­ly at­tempt­ed to stop ex­ca­va­tors from bull­doz­ing a forest­ed area, which he said was on pri­vate lands. The po­lice grant­ed him $500 own bail on an ob­struc­tion charge. He lat­er went to the Siparia Po­lice Sta­tion where he ap­peared via video link be­fore Se­nior Mag­is­trate Mar­garet Alert. He plead­ed not guilty to a charge of ob­struc­tion of the pas­sage­way.