Ot­to Car­rring­ton

Mara­cas/St Joseph pen­sion­er Sime­on Nakhid wants the au­thor­i­ties to re­pair a bridge to his home that was dam­aged dur­ing floods last No­vem­ber.

“Be­low the bridge cracked up and with the big floods last year the foun­da­tion is now com­pro­mised and this is now pos­ing a threat to us here. I have reached out to the coun­cil and the Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment but to no avail, no one is show­ing me any con­cern,” he said

More than 25 fam­i­lies use the bridge lo­cat­ed in Acono Vil­lage.

Nakhid said, “I built the bridge back in 2002 and I re­ceived a self-help grant of $18,000 to con­struct it. I took mon­ey from my pock­et to com­plete it and now it is dam­aged and I am 67 years old and it is dif­fi­cult for me at this age to at­tempt to do what I did back then.”

So far Coos­al Con­struc­tion Lim­it­ed, which is op­er­at­ing a quar­ry in the area, has of­fered as­sis­tance with some of the ma­te­ri­als for the re­pairs. How­ev­er, Nakhid said that is not enough and he is wor­ried be­cause the foun­da­tion is de­te­ri­o­rat­ing and the bridge could fall in­to the riv­er and cut off ac­cess for vil­lagers.

Coun­cil­lor for the area Col­in Selvon has spo­ken with Nakhid and promised that the mat­ter will be dealt with.