As the out­go­ing MP for the Tu­na­puna con­stituen­cy Es­mond Forde has been cam­paign­ing for a chance to serve the area for an­oth­er five years. He has promised to meet and treat with all the is­sues fac­ing his con­stituents.

In tack­ling the three main is­sues head-on, Forde point­ed to what he has al­ready ac­com­plished.

In the area of crime, while he made it clear that this falls un­der the port­fo­lio of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith, the MP said he has been work­ing along­side the Tu­na­puna po­lice to ad­dress the prob­lem by first iden­ti­fy­ing who are the ones in a par­tic­u­lar age group com­mit­ting the crime

Forde said he has formed a Youth Ad­vi­so­ry Desk at his of­fice to deal di­rect­ly with the younger con­stituents to find out their wants and needs.

Forde said his of­fice was al­so work­ing close­ly with sev­er­al or­gan­i­sa­tions like MIC In­sti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy, MUST (Mul­ti-Sec­tor Skills Train­ing) and the mil­i­tary and sport­ing clubs to fa­cil­i­tate a ca­reer path for some.

“We won some, we lost some,” he said.

He ad­mit­ted that while some progress had been made, “some of them get lost in the cracks.”

In terms of un­em­ploy­ment, Forde said this goes hand in hand with his an­ti-crime ef­forts.

He said that he has a good re­la­tion­ship with com­pa­nies at the Ma­coya In­dus­tri­al Es­tate, for ex­am­ple, and has been able to get em­ploy­ment for some who de­sired.

But he high­light­ed a big­ger prob­lem, “no­body wants to work and 8 to 4 job.”

He said this was a mind­set that needs to change if progress is to be made.

“We could lead the horse to the wa­ter but you can’t make him drink,” Forde com­ment­ed.

He said as MP he has “tried every trick in the book.”

The third area of con­cern for res­i­dents of Tu­na­puna is poor road in­fra­struc­ture.

Forde ex­plained that the pri­ma­ry roads, that is the East­ern Main Road, the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route and the high­way fall un­der the Min­istry of Works and all sec­ondary roads are the purview of the Tu­na­puna Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (TPRC).

He said once he was aware of road re­pairs that need to be done he makes a re­port to the rel­e­vant agency.

He said the TPRC has al­ready start­ed an ex­er­cise to patch most of the roads in Tu­na­puna and this will con­tin­ue in the com­ing weeks.

“Let’s be re­al, we can­not pave every street in Tu­na­puna but we try to pri­ori­tise.”

Forde said there was a wa­ter prob­lem, par­tic­u­lar­ly for peo­ple liv­ing in el­e­vat­ed ar­eas.

He said WASA was aware and has been do­ing a lot of sched­ul­ing, but has as­sured that it will work to­wards reg­u­lar­is­ing the sup­ply to those af­fect­ed.

“We are try­ing our best,” he said.

Forde is con­fi­dent of vic­to­ry come Au­gust 10.