Valdeen Shears-Neptune
Neeta Madhoo, 14 held up a placard begging Minister of Works Fitzgerald Hinds to fix a landslide near her home at Basta Hall, Couva. She was accompanied by her grandmother Seeromanie and young relatives who are worried their education will be disrupted if the roadway continues to cave in, splitting the village in two and forcing taxi drivers to travel longer distances to get passengers to their destination.
The family are accusing the Works Minister of ignoring their plight since he recently visited nearby Talparo for a similar landslip, but failed to show up there.
“He knows about it, the MP for the area and the councilor knows about it. They have told us they sent information to the minister. Why he has not come here yet and my home could go down with the road anyday now,” Madhoo said.
The landslip, which occurred last December 29,has widened to more than half the roadway and will affect more than 2000 residents. Hinds, who was contacted by the T&T Guardian when the landslip started, said at that time he was unaware of the problem and would investigate. However, he has not responded to calls on the matter since then
The Madhoo family of four adults and eight children, live in a two storey structure adjacent to the area that has caved in. Madhoo's son, Nicholas, said he worries, about unsuspecting motorists at night. Residents have also placed yellow caution tape to mark the affected spot, in the hopes that this too would alert drivers
"Two warning signs is all they come and put here and not even properly, a driver could be down in the hole before he knows what hit him, because the signs were placed too close to the landslip,” he said.
Couva South MPRudranath Indarsingh has blamed the on-going issue on discrimination by the present administration. He accused Government of “starving PP constituencies” of funds for developmental projects and emergencies. However, his claims have been refuted by Minister of Local Government Franklyn Khan.
“That is absolutely not true. We’ve done the budget for the entire 14 corporations and the capital allocated is in or around the same figure, give or take a few thousands. We have experienced some cash flow constraints and in the coming months we hope to address this issue, so to say PNM areas are getting money to do projects and not PP is definitely not the truth,” he said.
Khan said he is aware of the landslip at Basta Hall.
“I saw a letter on the matter, it falls under the Works Ministry but we are all one government we are not passing the buck, I will check to see what we can do to add some urgency in addressing the issue,” he said.