Sascha Wil­son

Res­i­dents liv­ing near the sprawl­ing man­sion of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in Phillip­ine say while con­struc­tion of her home has been on­go­ing over the years, they have no­ticed some sig­nif­i­cant work be­ing done with­in the last months. How­ev­er, they said their main con­cern was the con­di­tion of Es­tate Dri­ve, which runs along the right side of Per­sad-Bisses­sar's house. Com­plain­ing that the road was in a di­lap­i­dat­ed state, they said re­cent­ly on­ly a por­tion of the road­way along­side her house was paved.

A res­i­dent, who asked to re­main anony­mous, com­plained: "But what I want you all to look at is the con­di­tion of the road. It look so bad be­cause where the PM lives the road is nice and smooth. But from there, the fur­ther down you go the worst off it gets." Man­ning, in Par­lia­ment on Fri­day, claimed that be­fore the May 24 gen­er­al elec­tion Per­sad-Bisses­sar was strug­gling to con­struct the house, which he es­ti­mat­ed cost $150 mil­lion. Per­sad-Bisses­sar's house is sit­u­at­ed be­tween two emp­ty lots along the SS Erin Road.

A woman liv­ing in the area, who did not want to be named, said dur­ing the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress can­di­date had promised that the road would be re­paired. Ron­nie Moore, who was busy do­ing ma­son work on a fence, al­so com­plained about the road. Moore, who lives in Man­ning's con­stituen­cy, com­plained: "When it rain here the road is re­al mud­dy. My van is in a mess. I tell the man I work­ing for that he liv­ing in a nice area but with the worst road." Oth­er work­ers were busy paint­ing con­crete columns in the yard.

An­oth­er res­i­dent said when they moved in­to the area about five years ago, Per­sad-Bissses­sar's house was an in­com­plete struc­ture. "A man was stay­ing there with his wife and three lit­tle chil­dren and he was re­spon­si­ble for do­ing much of the work," she said. How­ev­er, she not­ed, the house has re­al­ly de­vel­oped in re­cent times. "She (Per­sad-Bisses­sar) put some huts to the back of the house and a pool," she added. An­oth­er res­i­dent said he re­turned to the coun­try a few days ago, hav­ing left the coun­try in Jan­u­ary. "When I came back, where was bush is no longer bush. I will put it that way," he said.