Adri­an Boodan

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

Fed up with what they said was poor rep­re­sen­ta­tion from their mem­ber of par­lia­ment, an­gry res­i­dents of Todd’s Road in Cen­tral Trinidad staged a fiery protest yes­ter­day, block­ing the Ca­paro Val­ley Bras­so Road near Are­na Road around 4 am, and set­ting tyres and oth­er de­bris on fire.

The res­i­dents de­mand­ed that their MP, Fos­ter Cum­mings (La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro), make the nec­es­sary moves to get a steady sup­ply of wa­ter in­to the com­mu­ni­ty and un­der­take re­pairs to their di­lap­i­dat­ed road.

A fe­male spokesper­son, who wished not to be named, said, “The protest is tak­ing place due to lack of rep­re­sen­ta­tion, no wa­ter, bad roads. Ar­eas that are af­fect­ed are the com­mu­ni­ties of Todd’s Road, Fletch­er’s Road, Pal­too Vil­lage, Son­ny­lal Road. These are the ar­eas that have been suf­fer­ing for wa­ter for the last ten years. We are ask­ing the MP Fos­ter Cum­mings to in­di­cate when our roads will be fixed, Mar­vin Gon­za­les (Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter up to yes­ter­day) when we would get a steady sup­ply of wa­ter. It is ridicu­lous and it’s ten years in the mak­ing. The res­i­dents are frus­trat­ed and un­bear­able (sic). The last sup­ply of wa­ter we got was on March 3.”

The res­i­dent said the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) had been try­ing to as­sist, but “two weeks to wait for wa­ter is un­ac­cept­able.”

The spokesper­son said WASA was still send­ing bills to cus­tomers.

“We need Fos­ter Cum­mings to an­swer us now,” the spokesper­son said.

Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Ryan Ram­per­sad said the cor­po­ra­tion was sup­ply­ing truck-borne wa­ter to ar­eas with­out a pipe borne ser­vice in parts of Tamana, Mun­do Nueveo and Las Lo­mas. How­ev­er, Ram­per­sad said fund­ing for this ac­tiv­i­ty was lim­it­ed to ar­eas with­out a pipeline.

“We do not have the fund­ing to sup­ply every­one with truck­borne ser­vices,”  he said.

Ram­per­sad said the roads the res­i­dents were com­plain­ing about fell un­der the Min­istry of Works, but the cor­po­ra­tion was will­ing to help.

“I per­son­al­ly ap­proached the Min­is­ter of Works Ro­han Sinanan and his Ju­nior Min­is­ter of Works Richie Sookhai about a year and a half ago and I of­fered to as­sist with our (the cor­po­ra­tion’s) trans­porta­tion and what not, we do not have ma­te­r­i­al. They have stock­piles of ma­te­ri­als (road millings) at Wood­ford Lodge and at Cou­va and I of­fered to as­sist with trans­porta­tion for some tem­po­rary patch­ing, both min­is­ter and the ju­nior min­is­ter blew me off and say its their job.”

Ram­per­sad said the cor­po­ra­tion did not have the re­sources  to do the work.  

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Cum­mings said, “I am aware of the sit­u­a­tion and WASA has been work­ing to bring some re­lief to the res­i­dents. In ad­di­tion, the MoWT has start­ed road sta­bil­i­sa­tion works at a few land­slides in the com­mu­ni­ty and have as­sured me that road re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion works will fol­low.”