Scores of res­i­dents from Point Fortin and en­vi­rons who make the dai­ly jour­ney to San Fer­nan­do for work and school were left strand­ed ear­li­er this morn­ing af­ter taxi dri­vers and res­i­dents staged fiery protests that blocked the main road­ways.

Point Fortin/San Fer­nan­do Taxi Dri­vers’ As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent John David said around 30 taxi dri­vers turned up at the taxi hub along Main­field Road this morn­ing but re­fused to make the 90-minute long trip to San Fer­nan­do.

David said many com­muters re­turned home while some were able to ac­cess oth­er modes of trans­porta­tion. He said the as­so­ci­a­tion al­so got sup­port from PH taxi dri­vers and vil­lagers of Union Vil­lage, La Brea, who cut trees and blocked the road to en­sure that the protest got at­ten­tion. How­ev­er, po­lice re­spond­ed and the road was re­opened.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia by phone, David said the as­so­ci­a­tion did not or­der the vil­lagers to block the road but sup­port­ed their stance. He said they too were be­ing af­fect­ed by the poor road con­di­tions like the taxi dri­vers. Asked about Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary’s Grif­fith’s re­cent state­ment that pro­test­ers will be dealt with by the po­lice, he said the of­fi­cers can on­ly ar­rest a pro­tes­tor if they see the in­di­vid­ual in the process of block­ing the road.

“If the po­lice just see peo­ple stand­ing and watch­ing, who are they hold­ing? It is the same po­lice who have to use the road so why doesn’t the Com­mis­sion­er meet with the min­is­ters to see if they can get the road fixed to help the of­fi­cers? We are al­ready pay­ing five per cent road tax so the Com­mis­sion­er should try to see what he can do about this sit­u­a­tion,” David said.

Taxi dri­vers said they are faced with in­creased main­te­nance cost as the roads are rid­dled with pot­holes, many of them as a re­sult of work done by WASA. They said this adds to their op­er­at­ing cost, which was in­creased with the hike in the price of Su­per gaso­line.

Their con­tention is that be­tween Point Fortin and South Oropouche, no ve­hi­cle can dri­ve for five min­utes on a smooth sur­face. As a re­sult of the con­di­tion, they said disc pads, shocks and tyres con­stant­ly go bad.

This morn­ing's protest was the fifth day of ac­tion by the dri­vers and David said it was a shame that the Gov­ern­ment was ig­nor­ing the peo­ple. He said let­ters were sent to Point Fortin MP Ed­mund Dil­lion, La Brea MP Nicole Ol­liviere, Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan and Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Robert Le Hunte ex­plain­ing the prob­lem. To date, he said on­ly Ol­liviere has replied to ac­knowl­edge re­ceipt of their let­ter.

The as­so­ci­a­tion is, how­ev­er, un­sure whether the protest will last for the en­tire day, as they were con­cerned about the pas­sen­gers. “We are not the Gov­ern­ment; we are for the peo­ple,” he said.

Mem­bers are ex­pect­ed to meet with of­fi­cials from the Point Fortin Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion short­ly.