RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Scrap iron work­ers have blocked parts of Pe­nal pil­ing heaps of mud in the cen­tre of the road­way.

Po­lice have been sta­tioned at the in­ter­sec­tion of Sat­nar­ine Trace and Clarke Road where the block­ade re­mains.

"The po­lice have no back­hoe, how we go­ing to clear this? We have to wait un­til the Cor­po­ra­tion send a back­hoe to clear this," one of­fi­cer told Guardian Me­dia.

Coun­cil­lor for Pe­nal Shan­ty Boodram ar­rived a short while lat­er say­ing the block­ade was done by scrap iron work­ers based on the signs that were erect­ed on the heap of mud.

The signs read: "Iron is life," and "The cost of liv­ing is high, we need to work."

Boodram said Sat­nar­ine Trace had a high lev­el of scrap iron work­ers, many of whom could not af­ford school books for their chil­dren.

At Prakash Boodoo En­ter­pris­es in Debe where scrap iron is bought and sold, op­er­a­tions man­ag­er Nicholas Ma­habir said work­ers were suf­fer­ing.

He said the com­pa­ny has been try­ing to pro­vide sup­port to work­ers by hir­ing them to do main­te­nance in the yard.

"Right now a lot of peo­ple are strug­gling to buy school books and even though the in­dus­try is closed they are still look­ing for a day work so they can car­ry back some­thing to their fam­i­lies," Ma­habir said.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that parts of Pa­pourie Road are al­so blocked.

Fur­ther up­dates will be pro­vid­ed as more in­for­ma­tion comes to hand.