Women and chil­dren made a heart­felt ap­peal to the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty to send wa­ter to the res­i­dents of Caratal, cen­tral Trinidad.

Yes­ter­day, Caratal res­i­dent Ker­lin Hus­ton said for the past six weeks the com­mu­ni­ty had been with­out any sup­ply from WASA.

She said calls to WASA for a free truck-borne ser­vice have proven fu­tile since the au­thor­i­ty takes over two weeks to ful­fil these re­quests.

Hus­ton said vil­lagers have to re­sort to pay­ing a trac­tor dri­ver up to $200 to de­liv­er a tank of wa­ter. Still, she praised the trac­tor dri­ver for help­ing out the com­mu­ni­ty.

Five-year-old Pey­ton Br­ere­ton said his fam­i­ly had on­ly a half a tank of wa­ter and he was wor­ried what would hap­pen when the new school term starts next week.

To com­pound the com­mu­ni­ty’s prob­lems, Hus­ton said the vil­lagers have al­so been beg­ging T&TEC for sev­er­al years re­move a met­al pole that has been rot­ting at the base.

She said the post could col­lapse at any time and rash on sev­er­al small chil­dren who play in the yard.

Chenique Mitchell from left Shanaya Ramcharan and Peyton Bereton point to a rotten pole where they play and fear it may collapse on them at any time.

Shastri Boodan

Six-year-old Shanaya Ram­cha­ran said she was wor­ried about her­self and the oth­er chil­dren in the com­mu­ni­ty, as they feared the T&TEC pole could come crash­ing down on them.

When asked if Tabaquite MP Su­ruj Ram­bachan was help­ing res­i­dents, Hus­ton said she heard he had re­tired.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Ram­bachan said he has been writ­ing to the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties but no­body was tak­ing him on.

Ram­bachan said sev­er­al ar­eas in his con­stituen­cy, in­clud­ing Cot­ton Hill, were al­so with­out wa­ter for more than a month.

He said in the last four years he has writ­ten over 500 let­ters to the au­thor­i­ties and on­ly 50 had been ac­knowl­edged.

He said the last time he spoke about it in Par­lia­ment the Prime Min­is­ter told him he was wast­ing gov­ern­ment sta­tionery.

He said: “The res­i­dents in my con­stituen­cy have been grow­ing tired of hear­ing that the agen­cies have not been re­spond­ing, but that’s the truth.

“The lev­el of re­sponse has been abysmal­ly low.” (Shas­tri Boodan)