JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Mar­aval taxi dri­vers are call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to prop­er­ly re­pair a pot­hole along Sad­dle Road, which they say caused ma­jor traf­fic con­ges­tion last week.

Videos post­ed on so­cial me­dia showed cars be­com­ing stuck in the pot­hole, while the is­sue prompt­ed the MP for the area Colm Im­bert to take to X, ac­cus­ing the Gov­ern­ment of be­ing cal­lous to­wards dri­vers.

Al­though the pot­hole was re­paired yes­ter­day morn­ing, taxi dri­vers said the work was not prop­er­ly done and warned that it could de­te­ri­o­rate.

“They didn’t do a prop­er job. They didn’t pitch, but they full it up, and be­cause of that, we able to pass much bet­ter right now. But, you know, if rain falls, what’s go­ing to hap­pen? It’s go­ing to dig back again. So, they need to pitch it,” said taxi dri­ver Charles Burn­ley.

Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Man­ag­er at the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA), Kristy Ram­nar­ine, con­firmed that the pot­hole was re­paired yes­ter­day and said paving would be com­plet­ed by this evening.

In a me­dia re­lease re­spond­ing to Im­bert, the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture said: “Im­bert is ful­ly aware that the mat­ter is al­ready be­ing ad­dressed. So let us deal in facts, not the­atre. The leak has been re­paired, the tem­po­rary re­in­state­ment is in place, and the per­ma­nent paving is sched­uled. That is the record. Mo­torists can be as­sured that the cur­rent con­di­tion is tem­po­rary and the road­way will be prop­er­ly re­in­stat­ed.”

Burn­ley said traf­fic had backed up as far as the Pil­lars at the cor­ner of Sad­dle Road and North Coast Road, lead­ing to Mara­cas. He said he had no­ticed a leak be­fore the pot­hole be­came a ma­jor prob­lem for dri­vers.

An­oth­er taxi dri­ver, Vic­tor Gool­jar, said pot­holes were a na­tion­al is­sue and not lim­it­ed to Mar­aval.

“Every side of the town is a pot­hole. They could even swim in it, some of them. Be­lieve it or not, it’s re­al­ly dis­gust­ing. It has so much ve­hi­cles on the road and peo­ple have tax­es to pay, you know? I mean, not to say we don’t have pitch here. We have a pitch. But why, why the road must be in this con­di­tion?”