As the country is moving forward the residents of Caratal Village in Cumoto feels as though they are going in the opposite direction.
The issues are many and Guardian Media toured the area to get a first-hand view.
They say there are badly damaged roads, landslides, over-grown roadside vegetation, an unreliable water supply, frequent power outages, no lights on recreation area, abandoned community centre construction project and no bus nor taxi service.
“Some of these things are dating back since before I was born and I am in my twenties,” said Avinash Sooknanan, Interim Chairman of Caratal Village Council.
Infrequent water supply/power outages
Sooknanan said the water supply is not on a constant schedule. He said sometimes they get water in their taps “once or twice a week if we lucky.”
He said it comes once a week in the night time. He explained that they have written to WASA several times and they have come to conduct personal site visits, but the situation has not improved.
“Now is Christmas, everybody wants to clean.”
He added that there are several power outages in the area and residents are fearful that their appliances would be damaged due to this.
Bus service stopped/ no taxi service
The interim chairman said in addition to the complaints regarding water, there is also a transportation predicament facing the villagers. He said there used to have a reliable bus service, which helped transport school children and the elderly. But as Sooknanan explained, the service had to be stopped because of the bad roads.
“The size of the bus, it couldn’t pass on the road anymore.”
He said the regional corporation put steel sheet over a broken cylinder on the roadway but didn’t work. Also, he said taxis only venture into the area at a high cost.
“I know people have paid taxi drivers 100 dollars just to transport them 4 miles from Cumoto junction, that’s how bad it is in here.”
Sinanan said to top it off there is one street where the garbage collectors refuse to venture because of the size and condition of the road. He said because of this, the regional corporation dropped 3 barrels on the main road and villagers depend on a good Samaritan from the area to pass around to collect other people’s garbage and then they would drop it in the barrel.”
Bad roads/landslides
But this is just one of the issues facing the roads.
Sooknanan said there are about more than 10 landslides in the area. He said, “these things have not been addressed, government come, government go.”
He said residents are willing to work with whoever is in authority in order to remedy the situation.
“You know how many times we have a member that went into the corporation and begged councillors that have represented us before to give us some material and we will patch the road ourselves and still nothing.”
He said given the size of the potholes in the community he refers to them as “lagoons.”
He added that when it rains the situation get a lot worse. Sooknanan said flooding is almost always certain because the major rives have not been drenched in many years.
Caratal falls under the Sangre Grande Regional Corporation (SGRC).
No recreational facilities
In terms of infrastructural development, the area is also lagging behind. They have one savannah but that too is unusable.
“You are running on the savannah and you could break your foot because there are big holes.”
He added that after fighting to get lights on the ground for years it was installed but never connected after two years. In addition, the residents also lobbied for a community centre and were happy when the foundation was laid for the start of construction, but “for some strange reason the project stopped.” Now all that is left on the site is overgrown bush.
Sooknanan said going to the media is the absolute last resort.
He said they have written to everyone they could think of.
He explained that only recently they even wrote the Prime Minister and was told by his office that the correspondence would be sent to the relevant ministries.
“I would like to call us the forgotten area in Trinidad,” Sooknanan said.
MP responds
Contacted on the host of issues Member of Parliament Christine Newallo-Hosein said, “I have been in contact with several ministries for Guatapajaro road and St Marie Emmanuel Road, Public utilities both WASA and T&TEC, requested electrification of Caratal recreation ground.”
She said she has also requested “regularly” to the SGRC for the grounds to be cut and particularly overgrown bush on roadways, regular garbage collection, requested truck borne water, requested box drains and for engineers to visit.
The MP added that she has been in contact with Digicel to facilitate a cell tower for efficient regular internet service “particularly for the school children who are required to complete school assignments via computer.”
In addition, Newallo-Hosein said she wrote the Ministry of Works and Transport for roadworks and landslips, in addition to drainage “and in recent times indiscriminate logging.”
Newallo-Hosein said that she too is waiting for responses from the relevant agencies to help the affected community.