Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

Res­i­dents of Wel­come Road, En­ter­prise, are not hap­py with the pot­hole patch­ing works be­ing done in the area to bring some lev­el of re­lief to mo­torists, who have had to bear wors­en­ing road con­di­tions over the years. They be­lieve the crush­er run used to fill the pot­holes yes­ter­day may last around a month be­fore it is ei­ther washed out by heavy rains or pushed out by heavy ve­hi­cles.

How­ev­er, Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (CT­TRC) chair­man Ryan Ram­per­sad says this was all the CT­TRC could do at this time.

Ram­per­sad said the CT­TRC did not have the re­sources to pave the road. He said the CT­TRC part­nered with one of the pri­vate con­trac­tors build­ing hous­es in the area who do­nat­ed around 60 yards of crush­er run for patch­ing. Ram­per­sad said the patch­ing was a tem­po­rary fix to give the res­i­dents some re­lief for the Christ­mas sea­son.

He said that come Jan­u­ary, the con­trac­tor would un­der­take per­ma­nent paving where the road was ex­ca­vat­ed to in­stall wa­ter mains. He said he, along with Ca­roni East MP Dr Rishad Seecha­ran, would con­tin­ue to lob­by Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Faris-al-Rawi to use agen­cies such as the Rur­al De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny and the Pro­gramme for the Up­grade of Road Ef­fi­cien­cy (PURE) to fix the road.

“We do not have one cent to fix any box drains or pave any roads. These roads fall un­der the purview of the CT­TRC, and we need the min­is­ter to find the funds from one of those agen­cies (RDC and PURE) to pave Wel­come North,” Ram­per­sad said.

Seecha­ran said on Sun­day he had a dis­cus­sion with Works Min­is­ter Ro­han, who as­sured him that the Min­istry of Works would pro­vide oil sand to cov­er the crush­er run.

How­ev­er, Seecha­ran said he did not get a time frame as to when the oil sand would be made avail­able.