RHON­DOR DOWLAT

Se­nior Re­porter

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt

Res­i­dents of Lal­loo Trace Ex­ten­sion in Cunu­pia are call­ing on the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties to com­plete the works that have al­ready be­gun on the bridge that col­lapsed two years ago.

On Au­gust 18th 2021, the Lal­loo Trace bridge con­nect­ing res­i­dents of Lal­loo Trace Ex­ten­sions to the Chin Chin Main Road col­lapsed due to heavy rain­fall and flood­ing.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, a res­i­dent said the small rur­al agri­cul­tur­al com­mu­ni­ty has el­der­ly peo­ple, preg­nant ladies and chil­dren who are now great­ly in­con­ve­nienced by this sit­u­a­tion. "The slopes to go up on the bridge caus­es ve­hi­cles to skid off the road and it pos­es a great dan­ger be­cause they can end up in the Cunu­pia Riv­er. There are the chil­dren, if play­ing, can fall in­to the riv­er be­low, the bridge is very nar­row as well and on­ly one ve­hi­cle can pass at a time. The dredg­ing of the riv­er needs to be done as well in the area be­cause part of the com­mu­ni­ty floods when it rains heavy," the res­i­dent said.

"At one time the garbage trucks had stopped com­ing in­to the com­mu­ni­ty forc­ing us to find al­ter­na­tive garbage dis­pos­al fa­cil­i­ties," the res­i­dent added, who wished not to be named.

Coun­cil­lor for the area, Ryan Ram­per­sad said when the bridge col­lapsed res­i­dents were forced to use a di­lap­i­dat­ed route through David To­by Road which takes three times as long as tak­ing the Lal­loo Trace bridge to the Chin Chin main road.

He added that agri­cul­tur­al farm­ers de­pend on us­ing the bridge, "It took al­most two years for gov­ern­ment and of­fi­cials to re­spond to our pleas for as­sis­tance. The work has to be com­plet­ed ad­vis­ably with wing walls. The ma­te­r­i­al packed loose­ly and prone to wash away again in heavy rains."

Res­i­dents have protest­ed sev­er­al times on this is­sue and now that the rainy sea­son is here they are call­ing for ac­tion im­me­di­ate­ly. "Be­fore tax­pay­ers' dol­lars lit­er­al­ly goes down the drain and flood­ing be­come an is­sue again. We the tax­pay­ing cit­i­zens de­serve bet­ter than this," one res­i­dent told the Guardian.

An­oth­er Coun­cil­lor for the area, Bal­matie Go­sine, al­so called for the works to be com­plet­ed in quick time.

The bridge con­nects two elec­toral dis­tricts with­in the Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion and the Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion.

In No­vem­ber 2022, the is­sue was raised by Ca­roni East MP Dr Rishad Seecher­an in the par­lia­ment. The Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries, Kaz­im Ho­sein said the bridge "is fit for pur­pose as it is an agri­cul­tur­al ac­cess bridge."

Ho­sein added that once the weath­er per­mits "the con­trac­tor will com­plete the works be­tween this month and ear­ly May."

How­ev­er, al­ready in June, with the works yet to be com­plet­ed, of­fi­cials at the Min­istry said it should be com­plet­ed at the end of the up­com­ing two weeks.