FFOS slams ministry for start of work on Manzanilla Highway

Environmental lobby Fishermen and Friends of the Sea (FFOS) say despite assurances given by attorneys for the Ministry of Works and Transport, work has started on the Government’s Churchill Roosevelt Highway extension to Manzanilla.

In a statement,the group described the action as “dishonourable and underhanded.”

FFOS also included photographs of bulldozers and other heavy earth works machinery clearing and preparing land, which they say is at the southern boundary of the Aripo Savannah.

The group has challenged the decision by the Environmental Management Authority (EMA) to issue a certificate of environmental clearance (CEC) to the Ministry of Works, for construction of a 5,000-metre highway starting at the Cumuto Main Road and ending at Guaico Trace in Sangre Grande.

In its lawsuit, FFOS contends the CEC is “unreasonable, illegal, procedurally improper, irrational, null and void and of no effect.” As part of their judicial review claim, FFOS is also asking the court for an interim injunction to stop all expenditure and construction work on the project.

At a hearing before Justice Kevin Ramcharan, in the Port of Spain High Court, the ministry’s attorney said it was not expected that any work on the highway project will begin immediately since at the time the contract between the National Infrastructure Development Company Limited (Nidco) and the contractor selected for the project, Kall Co, had not yet been signed.

The attorney also said there was a baseline survey to be completed and an environmental management plan before the EMA for approval.

However, in its statement, FFOS said work on the highway began on January 8.

“Fishermen and Friends of the Sea (FFOS) consider it dishonourable and underhanded for NIDCO to have commenced works without notice to us or to the court, knowing that the matter of the date of commencement of works had been discussed in court and in correspondence with the attorneys of the Ministry of the Works and Transport and FFOS and the JSO (the judge’s judicial support officer),” the statement said.