KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

With on­ly six days re­main­ing for Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions 2023, all eyes are fo­cused on the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, as it has the po­ten­tial to be a swing-seat this time around.

The cor­po­ra­tion has been led by the PNM for the last three con­sec­u­tive terms fol­low­ing the 2013, 2016 and 2019 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions.

Pri­or to that, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) won in 2010.

As the largest mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tion in terms of elec­toral dis­tricts, there are 16 dis­tricts un­der its wing.

This in­cludes Au­zonville/Tu­na­puna, Blan­chisseuse/San­ta Rosa, Bon Air/Arou­ca/Cane Farm, Cara­po, Cau­ra/Par­adise/Tacarigua, Cleaver/D’Abadie, Curepe/Pasea, Five Rivers, Kel­ly Vil­lage/War­renville, La Floris­sante/Lopinot, Ma­coya/Trinci­ty, Mara­cas/San­ta Mar­gari­ta, Mau­si­ca/Mal­oney, St Au­gus­tine South/Pi­ar­co/St He­le­na, Val­sayn/St Joseph, and Waller­field/La Hor­quet­ta.

How­ev­er, when Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed these ar­eas, it didn’t take long to dis­cov­er that more dis­tricts meant more prob­lems faced by res­i­dents in com­par­i­son to the oth­er bor­oughs and cor­po­ra­tions.

The Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion has be­come a breed­ing ground for pot­holes and a melt­ing pot of crime cou­pled with flood­ing woes, ac­cord­ing to those who re­side there.

Flood­ing

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia last Wednes­day, sev­er­al res­i­dents in the Kel­ly Vil­lage and St He­le­na ar­eas said they are yet to re­cov­er from flood­ing which took place in 2021.

One such vic­tim was Dol­ly Cum­ber­batch, a pen­sion­er, who was brought to tears as she re­flect­ed on the hor­rif­ic ex­pe­ri­ence she faced in Au­gust 2021.

Cum­ber­batch said, “I lost every­thing, every­thing. I lost my bed, wardrobe, fridge, stove, food­stuff, every­thing. Since then, things re­al­ly hard … Look up to now my par­lour close up. It can’t open be­cause I have no mon­ey. My daugh­ter used to do a lit­tle cater­ing but she can’t do any­thing be­cause wa­ter mash-up every­thing, all the cup­boards and every­thing. And up to now we can’t fix any­thing.”

Cum­ber­batch said she lives in fear every time she sees a trick­le of rain, as she prays to God his­to­ry does not re­peat it­self.

And, de­spite be­ing a PNM sup­port­er, she said the cor­po­ra­tion has not been do­ing its job to help res­i­dents in dis­tress.

Crime a ma­jor is­sue

From be­ing fear­ful of the sound of rain­fall to that of gun­shots, peo­ple in Curepe and La Hor­quet­ta said crime is a ma­jor is­sue faced in their com­mu­ni­ties.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, res­i­dents in the St Au­gus­tine South area said crime in their com­mu­ni­ty is tru­ly in­suf­fer­able.

Since the start of the year, Free­man Road, St Au­gus­tine, a street res­i­dents said was once un­heard of, has be­come the name on every­one’s lips when one thinks of hotspot ar­eas.

In Jan­u­ary, gun­men took the lives of Geno Shah and 16-year-old Dar­shan Ra­manut in a dri­ve-by shoot­ing in broad day­light.

In March, 26-year-old Aneesa Ramkissoon was mur­dered in­side her home with her young chil­dren near­by.

On April 26, Dil­lion Joseph, al­so from the area, was killed.

Days lat­er, Kris Pooran was killed by gun­men as he walked past Joseph’s wake.

And, on May 21, fa­ther of eight, Roger Ma­haraj, was one of three mur­dered. He, too, was from Free­man Road.

In­ter­viewed at the scene of the crime last Wednes­day, Ra­manut’s grand­moth­er, Soora­jie Ma­habir, claimed no one from the cor­po­ra­tion cares about the safe­ty or well-be­ing of the res­i­dents.

Ma­habir said, “They killed my grand­son right here. I was sit­ting right here when the gun­men drove in. It’s God alone shield me. Three of them died one af­ter the oth­er. No one has the au­dac­i­ty to come and say, ‘Dog or cat, I’m sor­ry for what hap­pened’. But, when elec­tions come you ask­ing for vote. I am fed-up with them and this vote, vote, vote and you get noth­ing.”

She added, “The on­ly time we does see these peo­ple is when it’s time to vote but every time you stain your fin­ger there, they promis­ing you this and they promis­ing you that, you don’t get noth­ing. They don’t even come af­ter to see if you dead or liv­ing.”

Blan­chisseuse, the for­got­ten dis­trict say res­i­dents

Res­i­dents from as far as Blan­chisseuse have echoed sim­i­lar sen­ti­ment of ne­glect.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the North Coast, res­i­dents of Blan­chisseuse said they con­sid­ered them­selves “the for­got­ten dis­trict.”

Known for its jaw-drop­ping beach­es, scenic views and bud­get-friend­ly fish mar­ket, peo­ple of this qui­et fish­ing com­mu­ni­ty said the com­mu­ni­ty is rid­dled with bad roads and a di­lap­i­dat­ed fish­ing port.

Res­i­dents said Blan­chisseuse is a ma­jor tourist-hub but with each pass­ing year the in­creas­ing num­ber of pot­holes and land­slips have de­terred more and more peo­ple from vis­it­ing the area.

And for those who do ven­ture through the dif­fi­cult ter­rain, fish­er­men said they end up get­ting in­to ac­ci­dents.

Last Thurs­day, one fish­er­man, Daniel Charles, said fish­er­men have al­so been beg­ging the cor­po­ra­tion to help fix the fish­ing de­pot for years, but those calls have fall­en on deaf ears.

As a re­sult, Charles and oth­er fish­er­men said they will not be vot­ing on Au­gust 14 be­cause they do not be­lieve any change will come no mat­ter which par­ty wins.

They said while oth­er dis­tricts may get help, they do not.

How­ev­er, some die-hard sup­port­ers in Tu­na­puna said they will be vot­ing to en­sure the cor­po­ra­tion re­mains a PNM-strong­hold.

One such sup­port­er was 70-year-old Harold Wilt­shire, who has vot­ed in many lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions, said he planned to do so once again come Au­gust 14.

Wilt­shire said he is look­ing for­ward to elec­tions this year for rea­sons no oth­er res­i­dent men­tioned to us.

Wilt­shire said, “I would like to see the new fea­tures im­ple­ment­ed … They are tak­ing the land and build­ing tax and giv­ing it to the cor­po­ra­tion to run the cor­po­ra­tion. I hope that they have strict ac­count­abil­i­ty so we will know how the mon­ey is spent.”

Asked if he be­lieved a PNM-led cor­po­ra­tion will be re­spon­si­ble and trans­par­ent with its spend­ing, he said yes.

Ready for a third op­tion

While the ma­jor­i­ty of res­i­dents gov­erned by this dis­trict be­ing die-hard PNM or UNC sup­port­ers, many said they are ready for a third op­tion.

With this call, a new po­lit­i­cal par­ty to the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions are­na, the Trinidad Hu­man­i­ty Cam­paign (THC) said they want to be the change for the peo­ple.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia on Fri­day, head of the par­ty Mar­cus Ramkissoon who is a can­di­date in the Val­sayn/St Joseph dis­trict said, “Peo­ple have told they were not go­ing to vote but now that there is a third op­tion and based on what I have to of­fer, they have changed their minds. Every­body say­ing we are glad to see a change.”

Asked what he will do dif­fer­ent­ly if elect­ed, he added, “We are the on­ly par­ty that has ad­dressed crime re­duc­tion from a lo­cal gov­ern­ment lev­el. We would put a 1,000-cam­era sys­tem at the St Joseph po­lice sta­tion. It’s cost­ing us less than $1 mil­lion to put a cam­era at every cor­ner of the dis­trict. This is how to start help­ing re­duce crime at a lo­cal lev­el.”

Sim­i­lar­ly, PEP’s can­di­date for the Mara­cas/San­ta Ma­g­a­ri­ta dis­trict, Vic­tor Si­mon, said he’s been re­ceiv­ing a lot of pos­i­tive feed­back be­cause res­i­dents have said they are ready for some se­ri­ous change.

As a res­i­dent of Mara­cas him­self, he added that he will tru­ly be a man of the com­mu­ni­ty.

Al­so speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia on Fri­day, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Derek Ram­samooj said, “The Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion rep­re­sents the op­por­tu­ni­ty that will demon­strate whether this po­lit­i­cal ac­com­mo­da­tion be­tween the op­po­si­tion par­ties will be a suc­cess or a fail­ure. This is what is rid­ing in this cor­po­ra­tion.”

He said the two elec­toral dis­tricts that will be ques­tioned would be the Mara­cas/San­ta Ma­g­a­ri­ta and the Cau­ra/Par­adise/Tacarigua as well.

He said while the PNM held the Mara­cas/San­ta Ma­g­a­ri­ta dis­trict, how­ev­er, in the last lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions there was a third can­di­date that won 500 votes.

As a re­sult, there was a 300-vot­er dif­fer­ence and in his view, this is the dis­trict UNC should be look­ing to re­cap­ture this time around.

This time around, there are five po­lit­i­cal par­ties and one in­de­pen­dent can­di­date in the run­ning.

The PNM has 16 can­di­dates, UNC has 12, Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) has four, Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty (PEP) has three, Trinidad Hu­man­i­ty Cam­paign (THC) has two and there is one in­de­pen­dent Kath­leen Wash­ing­ton vy­ing for the Blan­chisseuse/San­ta Rosa elec­toral dis­trict.