Carisa Lee

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

“No road, no vote!”

That was the warn­ing from res­i­dents of Fish­ing Pond, San­gre Grande, yes­ter­day morn­ing, as they protest­ed de­plorable roads in their com­mu­ni­ty.

About a dozen res­i­dents took part in the protest, point­ing out pot­holes on Gen­da and Flem­ming Roads. They threat­ened to with­hold their votes on April 28 if the roads are not re­paired by then.

“Since I is a young fel­la the road has been bad and it con­tin­ues get­ting more worse ... we are al­so tax­pay­ing cit­i­zens like every­body else, as we say­ing no road, no vote,” Lutch­mi Per­sad said.

Per­sad said the res­i­dents took mat­ters in­to their own hands and patched some of the holes, af­ter their com­plaints to the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (SGRC) and the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port (MoWT) went unan­swered.

“We does have to chip up and hire a truck man and bring ma­te­r­i­al, we buy­ing it on we own, just for we to pass,” he said.

The res­i­dents said on­ly a hand­ful of taxi dri­vers ven­ture in­to Gen­da and Flem­ming roads be­cause of the con­di­tions.

Taxi dri­ver Ja­son Per­sad said he op­er­ates on an­oth­er route be­cause main­tain­ing his car had be­come too ex­pen­sive.

At the be­gin­ning of the month, the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture an­nounced the start of tur­tle nest­ing sea­son. How­ev­er, res­i­dents said vis­i­tors have dwin­dled due to the bad roads.

“This is a road that holds the tourist at­trac­tion for the nest­ing for the tur­tle and peo­ple doesn’t even come here to vis­it be­cause of the de­plorable con­di­tion of the road, they rather go Matu­ra, Grande Riv­iere,” Gen­da Road res­i­dent Nar­ish Sookoo said.

He added that the cur­rent state is the worst he’s seen.

“If we don’t get it be­fore elec­tion we in trou­ble eh, we in trou­ble, we go­ing in­to an­oth­er five years with­out noth­ing,” he said.

SGRC chair­man Ken­wyn Phillip said he is aware of the sit­u­a­tion and has writ­ten let­ters to the MoWT but re­ceived on­ly ver­bal con­fir­ma­tion.

Phillip con­firmed that both Gen­da and Flem­ming Roads fall un­der the SGRC but said they do not have the re­sources to do the re­pairs. He said every part of his elec­toral dis­trict needs de­vel­op­ment but the fund­ing is not enough to cov­er the work that needs to be done.

Min­is­ter of Works Ro­han Sinanan did not re­spond to calls for com­ment.