Ralph Ban­warie

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) can­di­date for Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la San­jiv Bood­hu says he wants a so­ci­ety where elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives ad­vo­cate “from the trench­es, rather than from an ivory tow­er.” He was speak­ing dur­ing his cam­paign launch in San­gre Grande on Fri­day evening.

He said he has nev­er ex­pe­ri­enced that type of rep­re­sen­ta­tion in Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la and ex­plained that this is what pushed him to of­fer him­self for pub­lic ser­vice. “It is be­cause I want this type of rep­re­sen­ta­tion for my­self,” he said.

In his first pub­lic ad­dress, Bood­hu de­scribed liv­ing con­di­tions in parts of the con­stituen­cy as un­ac­cept­able. He ref­er­enced com­mu­ni­ties like Coryal, where some res­i­dents have lived with­out wa­ter for up to 15 years, and point­ed to a lack of prop­er roads, drainage and schools across the dis­trict. He said he wants change for Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la and be­lieves the so­lu­tion lies in con­sul­ta­tion and con­sis­tent, ef­fec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

Bood­hu said he will con­tin­ue speak­ing with MPs to en­cour­age more con­sul­ta­tion with their con­stituents.

“What is good for Jack is not nec­es­sar­i­ly good for Jane. As­sump­tions are not to be made, rather ef­fec­tive and ac­ces­si­ble open lines of com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween your MP and you should be the sta­tus quo,” he said.

Bood­hu told con­stituents that rep­re­sen­ta­tion means iden­ti­fy­ing pri­or­i­ties and lob­by­ing on their be­half.

The 33-year-old at­tor­ney al­so out­lined his ap­proach to pub­lic util­i­ties, road re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion, ed­u­ca­tion, health­care, hous­ing and youth en­gage­ment.

On util­i­ties, Bood­hu pro­posed con­stant mon­i­tor­ing of wa­ter and elec­tric­i­ty sup­ply sys­tems and im­proved over­sight to en­sure that in­fra­struc­ture up­grades are co­or­di­nat­ed across min­istries. He said this would help avoid un­nec­es­sary dis­rup­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly in ar­eas with un­planned de­vel­op­ments or agri­cul­tur­al zones.

He iden­ti­fied sev­er­al roads in need of ur­gent re­pair and main­te­nance, in­clud­ing Cu­mu­to Main Road, Up­per Cu­mu­to Road, Bonaire, Man­zanil­la, Coryal, Coalmine, Carmichael and Tamana.

Ref­er­enc­ing a protest in Fish­ing Pond on Wednes­day, he said, “Res­i­dents protest­ed in Fish­ing Pond on Wednes­day and they are right.” He crit­i­cised the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, point­ing to its re­vised al­lo­ca­tion of $96.69 mil­lion for 2024–2025. “We need to know where we fall with­in that,” he said.

On ed­u­ca­tion, he pledged to ad­dress the clo­sure of sev­er­al schools, in­clud­ing Tamana Hin­du, North Man­zanil­la Gov­ern­ment and San­gre Chiq­ui­to Pres­by­ter­ian and raised con­cerns about their re­place­ment with a shift sys­tem.

He said he would work with school boards and the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to find so­lu­tions. “Ed­u­ca­tion must con­tin­ue to be a pri­or­i­ty if we are to en­sure the sus­tain­able progress of our re­gion and our coun­try,” he said.

For health­care, Bood­hu said he would en­sure the main­te­nance of all health cen­tres and sup­port their up­grade to de­liv­er 21st-cen­tu­ry ser­vice. He al­so com­mit­ted to push­ing for new health fa­cil­i­ties in re­mote ar­eas.

On hous­ing, he said he would lob­by the Min­istry of Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment to give more at­ten­tion to the con­stituen­cy.

He en­cour­aged young peo­ple to take con­trol of their fu­ture. “Take charge of your lives and your fu­ture,” he said. “I want to hear your voice, views, as­pi­ra­tions, dreams and goals. I have a vi­sion for you.”

Bood­hu crit­i­cised what he called de­grad­ing po­lit­i­cal be­hav­iour over the years in Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la. He con­demned prac­tices such as of­fer­ing in­duce­ments, mak­ing un­re­al­is­tic promis­es, or pay­ing vot­ers.

He urged young vot­ers not to let any­one un­der­es­ti­mate their ca­pac­i­ty to make in­formed choic­es.

Bood­hu said the PNM con­tin­ues to present sound, re­spectable, re­spon­si­ble and qual­i­fied can­di­dates. “Take a good look for your­self at the 41 can­di­dates of­fered to you by PNM, not one of them is un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the po­lice. Not one of them is on $1m bail for se­ri­ous crim­i­nal charges. Not one of them is un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion for cor­rup­tion.”

Rag­bir re­sponds

In re­sponse, Dr Rai Rag­bir, out­go­ing MP, de­scribed Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la as a vast area and em­pha­sised that he had raised con­cerns in Par­lia­ment and in writ­ing, not­ing, “Hansard will show this.”

He crit­i­cised the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion’s han­dling of truck-borne wa­ter, stat­ing, “WASA is im­prov­ing sup­ply, but the SGRC has failed mis­er­ably in truck-borne wa­ter de­liv­ery,” and re­mind­ed the pub­lic of his role in ex­pos­ing the “wa­ter truck­ing rack­et.”

Rag­bir high­light­ed key wa­ter projects, in­clud­ing the com­mis­sion­ing of boost­er sta­tions in Man­zanil­la and Los Ar­madil­los, a new well in Ve­ga de Oropouche for an ad­di­tion­al 200,000 gal­lons dai­ly, and pipeline up­grades to serve Four Roads Tamana, Mar­tin Road, and Carmichael.

He al­so men­tioned the re­fur­bish­ment of the North Oropouche and Gua­napo Wa­ter Treat­ment Plants, with sod-turn­ing in Feb­ru­ary 2025 un­der Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les.

“These projects mean more ar­eas will get a reg­u­lar wa­ter sup­ply,” he said. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, he point­ed to a Habi­tat for Hu­man­i­ty project at the Coryal Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre. While ac­knowl­edg­ing more needs to be done, Rag­bir af­firmed that the peo­ple of Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la de­serve con­tin­ued ser­vice.