AN­NA-LISA PAUL

Se­nior Re­porter

an­nal­isa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Po­lit­i­cal sab­o­tage is how Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les has de­scribed the re­cent de­struc­tion of in­fra­struc­ture at the Lopinot His­tor­i­cal Site in Lopinot Vil­lage, Arou­ca, as well as in sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties.

The in­ci­dent saw street signs be­ing ripped down, dust­bins be­ing over­turned with garbage bags thrown across some ar­eas and pipelines be­ing smashed and bro­ken.

The pipelines were de­liv­ered to the site re­cent­ly to en­sure a more re­li­able wa­ter sup­ply to the com­mu­ni­ty.

In a post on his Face­book page yes­ter­day, the Lopinot/Bon Air West MP stat­ed, “So, the restora­tion of the His­tor­i­cal Site in Lopinot and the in­stal­la­tion of wa­ter sup­ply to La Pas­to­ra is an­ger­ing some po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents to the ex­tent that they are re­sort­ing to acts of van­dal­ism and open sab­o­tage?

“Who ben­e­fits as a re­sult of this kind of self-hate? It’s okay for some to high­light is­sues for their own nar­row and self­ish agen­das, but it’s not a good thing when strides are be­ing made to tack­le the chal­lenges to ad­vance their com­mu­ni­ty? Since when treach­ery and sab­o­tage re­sult in the ad­vance­ment of so­ci­eties and com­mu­ni­ties?”

Ac­cus­ing the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) de­trac­tors of en­gag­ing in ma­li­cious be­hav­iour to sab­o­tage the par­ty’s work, the min­is­ter said it was a cost­ly al­ter­na­tive to, “When they can’t beat us at the bal­lot box.”

The acts of van­dal­ism or, as the min­is­ter termed it, sab­o­tage, have come on the heels of the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions which were held on Au­gust 14—which saw the PNM and the Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) emerg­ing even­ly matched, with sev­en re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions each.

Sev­er­al peo­ple re­spond­ed to Gon­za­les’ post about the in­ci­dent.

Bran­don A Ma­haraj wrote, “This is in no way ac­cept­able, and I hope the peo­ple re­spon­si­ble are caught! You can­not rip out bins and pull down signs that are there for the ben­e­fit of the com­mu­ni­ty if you are fight­ing for change for the same com­mu­ni­ty!!

“How­ev­er, as I saw this morn­ing, this was done in over ten spots along the Lopinot Road and I’m sure there are more than enough cam­eras to cap­ture the peo­ple or even the ve­hi­cles that were in­volved.”

Nandy Lewis en­cour­aged Gon­za­les not to be dis­tract­ed from his pur­pose to serve con­stituents.

“This is wicked­ness...con­tin­ue do­ing your Job Mr Gon­za­les...Our MP... I pray to God that who­ev­er de­stroyed what is placed for the com­mu­ni­ty and oth­ers to en­joy...be held and pay for their wrong do­ings. GOD DONT SLEEP.”

Mean­while, Geor­giana Hazel said, “I’m to­tal­ly em­bar­rassed by the be­hav­iour of these so call peo­ple of my vil­lage that be­lieve by do­ing this you will get things done...Af­ter all the hard work the Cepep work­ers did al­so to clean the place, that’s just evil act. I re­alise some peo­ple don’t like progress if they not in­volved or get­ting some­thing. Stop hat­ing oth­ers and try to come to­geth­er to build a bet­ter com­mu­ni­ty for us and oth­ers to en­joy.”

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts Ran­dall Mitchell has pro­posed that he and Gon­za­les meet to dis­cuss strate­gies to se­cure the site from fur­ther acts of van­dal­ism and sab­o­tage.

Gon­za­les said, “As Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, I will con­tin­ue to work with the Gov­ern­ment to ad­vance the com­mu­ni­ty of Lopinot/La Pas­to­ra and every elec­tion, all de­trac­tors will be sound­ly beat­en in the polls be­cause bad mind and nasty vibes will not break our spir­its. Our work and record of per­for­mance will over­whelm the de­trac­tors.”