Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Heights of Aripo res­i­dents joined to­geth­er yes­ter­day morn­ing to protest de­te­ri­o­rat­ing roads in the rur­al com­mu­ni­ty in east Trinidad.

The res­i­dents did not burn tyres or block the al­ready crum­bling roads, but in­stead came out to give mem­bers of the me­dia a tour of the roads they are forced to ma­noeu­vre on a dai­ly ba­sis on their jour­ney to and from home.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, PRO of the com­mu­ni­ty’s vil­lage coun­cil, Cleve­land Dou­glas, ex­plained that res­i­dents were con­cerned that the com­mu­ni­ty would be cut off if the road got worse with the start of the rainy sea­son.

“We need help right now be­cause it is crit­i­cal and soon it will be­come im­pass­able,” Dou­glas said.

He ex­plained that not on­ly the over 1,000 res­i­dents would be af­fect­ed but the hun­dreds of per­sons who vis­it the com­mu­ni­ty fre­quent­ly for hikes, riv­er limes and oth­er recre­ation­al ac­tiv­i­ties.

He said as a re­sult of the road con­di­tions, the Pub­lic Trans­port Ser­vice Cor­po­ra­tion (PTSC) has re­duced its ser­vices to the com­mu­ni­ty and am­bu­lances refuse to re­spond to emer­gency calls there.

“Taxis don’t want to come up here be­cause they will have to keep spend­ing on their sus­pen­sion,” he said.

Dou­glas claimed that the Rur­al De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny of T&T was sup­posed to do re­ha­bil­i­ta­tive work on the road and a ma­jor 12-tonne bridge in the com­mu­ni­ty but in­stead on­ly fo­cused on the en­trance of the com­mu­ni­ty, which he de­scribed as “not crit­i­cal.”

“It come like Aripo is de­sert­ed apart from the lit­tle work in the front,” he said.

Dou­glas was care­ful to note that the res­i­dents did not blame Ari­ma MP Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son or the area’s lo­cal gov­ern­ment coun­cil­lor, who they ad­mit­ted had writ­ten nu­mer­ous let­ters to the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port seek­ing as­sis­tance for them.

Dou­glas not­ed that af­ter the na­tion and the vil­lage were shak­en by the news of 23-year-old Ju­di­cia­ry em­ploy­ee An­drea Bharatt be­ing dumped there af­ter be­ing ab­duct­ed in ear­ly 2020, vil­lagers formed a check­point to mon­i­tor ve­hi­cles en­ter­ing and leav­ing the com­mu­ni­ty.

He claimed that since then, there has been a ma­jor de­crease in crim­i­nals util­is­ing the com­mu­ni­ty for their ne­far­i­ous ac­tiv­i­ties.

“Aripo is a place with re­al love. We are al­ways com­ing to­geth­er to do things,” Dou­glas said.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Michael Gold­berg, who has been op­er­at­ing a farm in the com­mu­ni­ty for over 25 years, said the road was the worst he had ever seen.

“It is not just me, it is every­body and peo­ple are start­ing to get fed-up,” Gold­berg said.

Gold­berg ex­plained that the truck he us­es to trans­port his co­coa and christophene was dam­aged be­cause of the roads.

“I can’t get my goods out,” he said.

Gold­berg claimed he wrote to sev­er­al min­istries, the Ari­ma Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion and even Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley for as­sis­tance but to no avail.

“You name the agency and I have been to it, but they send you around in cir­cles,” Gold­berg said.