JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Wednesday, February 19, 2025

New welcome sign with error causes a stir in Morvant

... residents also call for issues in community fixed

by

KAY-MARIE FLETCHER
20 days ago
20250130
The new “Welcome to Morvant Laventille” sign which was unveiled by the East Port-of-Spain Development Company Limited (EPoS) at Morvant Junction yesterday.

The new “Welcome to Morvant Laventille” sign which was unveiled by the East Port-of-Spain Development Company Limited (EPoS) at Morvant Junction yesterday.

KAY-MARIE FLETCHER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

A new “Wel­come to Mor­vant Laven­tille” sign has caught the at­ten­tion of cit­i­zens, not be­cause of its beau­ty—as in­tend­ed—but rather a mis­spelling print­ed on the sig­nage that went un­de­tect­ed. 

The new sign was un­veiled by the East Port-of-Spain De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (EPoS) at the in­ter­sec­tion of La­dy Young Road and the East­ern Main Road at Mor­vant Junc­tion yes­ter­day. 

EPoS said it’s part of its Busi­ness Im­prove­ment Dis­trict (BID) project, which aims to en­hance the phys­i­cal im­age of east of Port-of-Spain.

How­ev­er, “Arneaud Av­enue” was in­cor­rect­ly spelt as “Arneaud Anenue” on the sign, leav­ing many raised eye­brows and ques­tions over who sanc­tioned the sign and how much it cost tax­pay­ers to con­struct it.

Op­po­si­tion MP Khadi­jah Ameen post­ed a pho­to of the sign’s un­veil­ing to so­cial me­dia, say­ing, “Imag­ine hav­ing a whole cer­e­mo­ny with every­one in tow to cut a rib­bon for a sign and you spell Av­enue as Anenue. What’s the cost again? #VoteTh­e­mOut”

The sign was al­so met with some un­wel­comed scep­ti­cism, as res­i­dents be­lieve their re­al is­sues are not be­ing ad­dressed. While some res­i­dents saw the sign as an item to beau­ti­fy the area, they told Guardian Me­dia it does noth­ing to al­le­vi­ate se­ri­ous is­sues af­fect­ing their com­mu­ni­ty, in­clud­ing crime, un­em­ploy­ment, garbage and drainage prob­lems. 

A Guardian Me­dia video on­line of the un­veil­ing al­so gar­nered a lot of neg­a­tive at­ten­tion, with many peo­ple leav­ing com­ments sug­gest­ing that the Gov­ern­ment use the mon­ey to in­vest in pro­grammes for res­i­dents and in­fra­struc­ture for the area in­stead. Guardian Me­dia al­so sought the cost of the wel­come sign, but up to press time did not re­ceive feed­back from EPoS.

At the site yes­ter­day, Mor­vant res­i­dent Nicole Smart said for years she’s tried con­tact­ing both in­cum­bent Laven­tille East/Mor­vant MP Adri­an Leonce and the coun­cil­lor for the area, about en­sur­ing peo­ple do not dump garbage in front of her home, which is lo­cat­ed on La­dy Young Road, as it leads to clog­ging the drains, but to no avail.

She claimed the garbage truck on­ly comes to take away the garbage when peo­ple burn the items.

How­ev­er, she said the Fire Ser­vice al­so has to be called in fre­quent­ly to out the fires, which are al­so prov­ing to be a se­ri­ous health and safe­ty haz­ard. She said she al­so fears the over­heard wires could catch afire and it could spread to her house.

As far as the erec­tion of the new sign is con­cerned, Smart said, “When I looked at the sign, I find it is a lit­tle bit too small. You have to slow down in or­der to see where you go­ing to and how far you go­ing, but it has a lot of is­sues with­in the com­mu­ni­ty that I think they need to ad­dress and they’re not ad­dress­ing at all... I’m hop­ing if I put up a sign here it helps. I don’t think it will help but I’m just hop­ing.”

An­oth­er Mor­vant res­i­dent, who asked to re­main anony­mous, said, “You put a sign to say wel­come, wel­come means you are wel­come to come in but who re­al­ly wants to come in here? If you stay too long you could get shot. And they ain’t do­ing any­thing for we.”

An­oth­er Mor­vant res­i­dent said, “There are no train­ing pro­grammes for the youths. You on­ly want the youths’ vote, but af­ter elec­tions you aban­don them, you ne­glect them, so what you ex­pect to hap­pen?

“Where are the jobs? You not fix­ing the drains. One set of hogs on­ly com­ing in the area be­cause of all the garbage. You want to put a sign there. Maybe that’s good for trav­ellers or tourists to know where they go­ing, but what about the com­mu­ni­ties, what’s there to help them?”

Res­i­dents even ad­vised Guardian Me­dia to be care­ful when vis­it­ing the area, not­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of be­ing shot by the crim­i­nal el­e­ment as well.

With Leonce on his way out, hav­ing an­nounced his de­par­ture from pol­i­tics due to a per­son­al is­sue, some of the res­i­dents said they are not even con­fi­dent a new MP will do any bet­ter.

Last week, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment se­lect­ed Co­conut Dri­ve res­i­dent and en­gi­neer Chris­t­ian Birch­wood to re­place Leonce.

The UNC is yet to an­nounce a can­di­date for this con­stituen­cy.

How­ev­er, PEP leader Phillip Alexan­der re­cent­ly told Guardian Me­dia his par­ty plans to con­test the con­stituen­cy.

On the rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the con­stituen­cy, Smart added, “I re­al­ly can’t tell you about the rep­re­sen­ta­tion be­cause to me no mat­ter who in pow­er and who in the area, I don’t see things be­ing done around here.”


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored