Cedros councillor upset

CEDROS councillor Shankar Teelucksingh has criticised Works and Transport Minister Rohan Sinanan for not meeting with residents when he visited the area on Saturday.

Teelucksingh said residents have been waiting since June, last year, to meet with the minister.

The councillor said no one knew of Sinanan’s visit on the weekend when he opened the Bonasse Bridge.

“He came like a thief in the night without any warning and opened the Bonasse Bridge, took pictures and disappeared,” Teelucksingh said.

He said the people of Cedros were hoping to confront the minister on several issues affecting the area, but could not do so, since no one knew he was there to open the bridge.

“Normally the office of the Ministry of Works and Transport will call and inform us of time and date of their visit to the area. However, we knew nothing of the bridge being opened. This bridge was supposed to open mid-2018 but villagers had to wait additional six months to get it opened,” Teelucksingh said.

Teelucksingh said the building of the bridge was a project of the People’s Partnership government.

Construction started in 2014 and stopped in 2015 when the People’s National Movement was elected into office, Teelucksingh said.

“After many protests where Cedros villagers called for the completion of the bridge, work resumed in 2016. It took two years for this bridge to be completed and another six months for it to be opened,” he added.

The councilor said engineers at the Works and Transport Ministry changed the design of the bridge which was required to have a free-flow of inland water out to the sea and also to stop the salt water from coming inland via a manual flood gate.

“The floodgates were redesigned to allow low water run-off, but this is inappropriate because Cedros is below sea level, so once there are high tides and heavy rains the community will flood,” Teelucksingh said.

This, he said, was a major issue with residents of the Cedros since whenever the salt water comes on land it causes flooding.

In recent times, he added, floods have caused villagers to be marooned since the water was not running out to sea properly.

Whenever it floods, Teelucksingh said, more than 150 families from Bonasse Village are affected. He said the schools were filled with water and the ambulance and police vehicles were unable to work.

He also said another issue was that the water which comes in from the sea, remained stagnant and causes a stench in the area.

Teelucksingh wants Sinanan to revisit the bridge and make the necessary changes to alleviate the problems.

He said Sinanan visited Cedros in early 2018 and assured the villagers that the ministry would send its technical team to look at the issue of flooding and deal with it.

“This has not been done and he came to the area unannounced and opened the bridge without addressing the issues outlined to him earlier on.

“I am calling on him to do the engineering work that was promised have that problem rectified,” Teelucksingh said.

He said residents waited four years for a bridge but was cheated since they did not get value for their tax dollars.