Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Frus­tra­tion spilled in­to the streets yes­ter­day as res­i­dents of Kan­hai Road North, Bar­rack­pore, de­mand­ed ur­gent re­pairs to a road they said had been ne­glect­ed for decades.

Armed with plac­ards and chant­i­ng for the road to be fixed, res­i­dents said nu­mer­ous pot­holes had made the road­way dif­fi­cult and dan­ger­ous to nav­i­gate while al­so tak­ing a toll on ve­hi­cles.

“The road is de­plorable. We want the road fixed. We fed up with the MP do­ing noth­ing,” com­plained res­i­dent Sam­ral­ly Ali, ac­cus­ing Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Dr Naren­dra Roop­nar­ine of fail­ing to ad­dress their con­cerns.

Ali, 73, said the road­way is al­so used by maxi-taxis and oth­er mo­torists trans­port­ing chil­dren to school and res­i­dents to near­by com­mu­ni­ties.

He claimed that when he com­plained to Roop­nar­ine, the MP told him his “back broad,” mean­ing he could han­dle it if they protest­ed.

“What he did, he do a lit­tle piece in GP Road and he boasts on the me­dia what he do...if you go back there right now, it’s in the same con­di­tion.

“What they do here, they come and they just take a grad­er. They grade to the side of the road and on­ly promis­ing this week, next week, this week, next week.”

Res­i­dents be­lieve they are be­ing tak­en for grant­ed be­cause they live in the Na­pari­ma com­mu­ni­ty, which is a UNC strong­hold.

“What’s go­ing on with this UNC gov­ern­ment, they know that Na­pari­ma is a safe seat for them. So, if they put a don­key with a UNC jer­sey, they will still vote for them. So, this is what they’re do­ing to us and it is wrong,” charged Ali.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Fa­reed Ali, said the poor con­di­tion of the road­way had al­ready dam­aged his ve­hi­cle.

“Right now my car, the shock bad, the ball joint bad. I don’t have mon­ey to fix any­thing,” he said.

Res­i­dents al­so com­plained that emer­gency re­sponse times would be dras­ti­cal­ly slowed be­cause of the con­di­tion of the road.

Rook­min Bridge­mo­han-Rooplal, 65, said the road was paved 44 years ago and that al­though they had sup­port­ed the UNC and its rep­re­sen­ta­tives, they may have to with­hold their votes.

“Next year, we want to re­mind the MP and Ms Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the coun­cil­lor, es­pe­cial­ly coun­cil­lor, we sup­port them right through for the elec­tion com­ing up next year, by my house it’s about six or sev­en votes, so that will be less if this road don’t fix.”

She said they would ac­cept no more ex­cus­es and were not will­ing to wait un­til next year’s elec­tions or the Bud­get for their road to be re­paired.

“I have to dri­ve in this road morn­ing and evening to drop grand­chil­dren to school be­cause their moth­er work­ing. My car right now need tires. The shocks may be gone. The brakes may be gone too,” she com­plained.

She added that if they re­ceived no re­sponse, they would take their protest to the MP’s of­fice.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Bisham Rame­sar, com­plained that he had been with­out wa­ter in his tap for a month. He said he re­quest­ed truck-borne wa­ter three days ago and was still wait­ing.

CNC3 con­tact­ed MP Narindra Roop­nar­ine for a re­sponse, but sev­er­al at­tempts to con­tact him on his cell­phone were un­suc­cess­ful.

Coun­cil­lor Ger­ard Per­ri­era’s sec­re­tary an­swered his of­fice cell­phone and in­di­cat­ed that he had no com­ment. At­tempts to reach him on an­oth­er cell­phone were un­suc­cess­ful.

The State of Emer­gency is still in ef­fect, and while po­lice of­fi­cers were present, they did not in­ter­vene as res­i­dents voiced their con­cerns.