Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Moru­ga res­i­dents jeered, booed and chased Princes Town South/Table­land MP Pe­ter Tay­lor out of their com­mu­ni­ty yes­ter­day as they ac­cused him of poor rep­re­sen­ta­tion. He had gone to Fifth Com­pa­ny vil­lage, af­ter hear­ing that a lo­cal ra­dio sta­tion, 104.7FM, was in the area con­duct­ing in­ter­views. When Tay­lor ar­rived, res­i­dents con­verged around him, de­mand­ing to know why he nev­er as­sist­ed them since he took of­fice. Ges­tic­u­lat­ing wild­ly, one woman walked up to Tay­lor and bel­lowed: "Get out! We don't want you here. You on­ly here be­cause Man­ning call elec­tion." She lament­ed that for the past few years res­i­dents were suf­fer­ing be­cause of poor roads, poor drainage, lack of wa­ter and un­em­ploy­ment.

Tay­lor stood his ground and at­tempt­ed to speak to the res­i­dents but they crossed their clenched fists in front of their faces in an im­i­ta­tion of Per­cy Vil­lafana, who had blocked Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning from en­ter­ing his prop­er­ty weeks ago. Ryan Gazette shout­ed: "These is­sues we have were raised with Tay­lor many times be­fore and he did noth­ing for the peo­ple. He failed us. He is a fail­ure." Elvin Dy­er claimed in the last elec­tion, he as­sist­ed Tay­lor in win­ning the seat. Dy­er said he took Tay­lor around and "nev­er get noth­ing, not even a bot­tle of wa­ter." Tay­lor who stood next to Dy­er as he spoke, smiled and shook his head but nev­er de­nied the ac­cu­sa­tion.

Ever­ald Dy­er said he has been vot­ing PNM for all of his life. "I does get bal­isi­er morn­ing noon and night, but (Clifton) De Couteau opened up my eyes. Now I see­ing that the writ­ing is on the wall for the PNM. They suf­fer­ing the peo­ple," Dy­er said. The res­i­dents then start­ed singing: "We rid­ing with De Couteau." De Couteau is ex­pect­ed to con­test the Princes Town South/Table­land seat in the May 24 elec­tion. Lennox Clarke said since PNM took of­fice there was a hi­er­ar­chy in place which made MPs in­ac­ces­si­ble to the peo­ple. He said the Samuel Coop­er bridge had bro­ken down and de­spite many com­plaints noth­ing was done. The ra­dio team–Andy Williams, Ger­ard Smalls, Michael Kerr and Daniel Mor­ris–said hun­dreds of res­i­dents who were there when Tay­lor ar­rived, un­leashed their fury at his rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

Res­i­dents com­plain:

�2 No rep­re­sen­ta­tion

�2 No wa­ter

�2 Poor roads, drains

I'm a peo­ple's per­son–Tay­lor

Princes Town South/Table­land MP Pe­ter Tay­lor gave a com­mit­ment yes­ter­day that he would al­le­vi­ate the suf­fer­ing of peo­ple in his con­stituen­cy. He said many ex­pressed le­git­i­mate con­cerns of un­em­ploy­ment, poor roads and wa­ter short­ages. Asked why he did not ad­dress the con­cerns be­fore Tay­lor said: "It is not that noth­ing was done. These prob­lems are on­go­ing and we have put mea­sures in place to ad­dress them."

Asked about his achieve­ments in the con­stituen­cy, Tay­lor said: "We tried to get peo­ple in­volved in Cepep and URP. There is no high­est achieve­ment but we have worked hard to im­prove the con­di­tions of the peo­ple." He said he was con­fi­dent he would re­tain his seat. Tay­lor not­ed: "In spite of every­thing, the PNM re­mains the on­ly par­ty that of­fers sta­bil­i­ty and a track record of ser­vice. I con­sid­er my­self to be a man of the peo­ple be­cause I in­ter­act with them on a per­son­al lev­el." He said there were a lot of young women in the con­stituen­cy who did not have em­ploy­ment and im­me­di­ate at­tempts would be made to rec­ti­fy the sit­u­a­tion.