An impassioned appeal by Los Bajos resident Pamela Mitchell for a better road network evoked an apology from Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley for the sub-par roads across T&T.
Mitchell raised the issue with the country’s leader during “Conversations with Dr Rowley” which was held at the Palo Seco Government Primary School last night as part of the People’s National Movement (PNM) Local Government Elections campaign.
The older woman took the Government to task for the State of the country’s roads, especially in the South.
“The oil, the revenue that they get to run the country is from the South. They pull it up from under our house. The pitch lake is in the South, yet we have the worst roads,” she said.
As she jested the Prime Minister, she suggested that he consider giving her a contract to fix the problem as she believes the solution only takes a common-sense approach.
“Give me the contract and it wouldn’t cost $5 million and there wouldn’t be no bribe and kickback. Common sense, common sense!” she exclaimed with applause from the audience.
Dr Rowley, who smiled as he listened to her concerns, took a humble approach in his response.
“As Prime Minister, it falls to me to apologise for the state of many of our roads and the reason is this–priority,” he said.
He was speaking even as major landslips have been reported up to this week with 20 feet of the Brazil Arena Road collapsing, rendering it impassable. Citizens have also faced a similar issue along the Manzanilla Main Road which was severely damaged by floods in November last year. Works on a permanent road commenced on Friday, and it is expected to be completed in five months.
Dr Rowley said this country’s road network deteriorated because of an almost 30 per cent loss of revenue in 2015 which was compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It was a sudden and dramatic and significant loss of revenue, so the first priority was not to maintain a road paving programme,” he said.
“Not that we deliberately didn’t maintain the roads but on the list of priorities–we maintained the main arteries through the Ministry of Works, hundreds of millions of dollars–but the secondary road programme suffered. That I have to admit, that I have to apologise for, and that is the reason for it,” he continued.
The Prime Minister also assured that the Government has re-engaged in a secondary road programme to address these concerns.
“2015 to 2022 were about the most difficult period in the history of Independent Trinidad and Tobago and if out of that comes some roads that are substandard, as they are, we have hope, we have faith, we have a commitment that we are going to get to your road and we’re going to bring them to a standard that will be acceptable,” he said.
New dry docks on the way
The La Brea dry dock project is still on the table, while the dock at the Caribbean Dockyard & Engineering Services Ltd (CDESL) in Chaguaramas, which was known as Caridoc, will be replaced soon.
Dr Rowley announced in response to a question posed by Jerome Hamilton.
“We still have the interest from the Chinese. Once we get to the point of EMA approvals for the project and scale, we then will have to move to the question of financing and of course the whole question of moving to an investment decision where you commit the funds to the project,’ he said in reference to the La Brea dock.
The Prime Minister went on to pledge that the Government is covering all its bases, including receiving necessary approvals from the Environmental Management Authority (EMA), to avoid being sued.
This, as he recalled the $380-million lawsuit the Government is fielding over the previous administration’s decision to cancel the construction of the 125,000-tonne aluminium smelter in 2010.
“This Government is now having to try to negotiate our way out of that, or at least out of some of it, but we can’t run away from it any further which is why we have to be careful that we ensure that that is not repeated with the dry dock, that we satisfy all the necessary environmental requirements,” he said.
According to the Prime Minister, the Government is in the market for a new Caridoc after the previous one rotted and sank on August 27, 2022.
He said the State has received eight bids adding that the National Infrastructure Development Company Limited will soon make recommendations to the Parliament so Cabinet can decide on the way forward.