No help yet for ‘Kazim Hosein Trace’ residents

Even a campaign to rename their street after Local Government Minister Kazim Hosein has been unable to get residents of Sahai Trace, Princes Town, any assurance that a landslip along their street will be repaired anytime soon.

Nearly two weeks after symbolically hoisting a street sign which read “Kazim Hosein Trace” in a protest on January 13, Inverness/Princes Town councillor Deryck Mathura told Newsday neither he nor residents have received any correspondence from Hosein or his ministry.

Mathura told Newsday, “After the protest, I haven’t heard anything as yet.

"The road is a main access in and out of Sahai Trace which residents use. I would now consider this road to be completely gone, considering what it was before the landslip. It’s a matter of urgency.”

Contacted for comment, Naparima MP Rodney Charles told Newsday residents are calling on Hosein “to be a big man and do the right thing.”

Charles lamented, “No action whatsoever has been witnessed in the former Sahai Trace – now renamed Kazim Hosein Trace – in terms of landslip repairs. One would have thought that the minister would have had some shame and acceded to the requests of residents.

“Residents are suffering and are unable to get truck borne water, commute freely and in a trouble free manner or even get their garbage collected.”

Charles has said it will cost the Princes Town Regional Corporation at least $2 million to repair the landslip and he is pleading with Hosein to disburse the funds.

While the street was symbolically renamed, Mathura and Charles have written to Princes Town Regional Corporation chairman Gowrie Roopnarine, on behalf of residents, to ask for the name change to be official.

But Roopnarine told Newsday on Monday he had not received any requests from residents to formally change the street’s name.

“That’s the only way a street name change can be done, with a petition from the residents. The majority of residents in the area – more than 75 per cent – must sign a petition. I have not gotten that request to date.”

Roopnarine said officials from the Ministry of Rural Development visited the trace last week. However, he wasn’t given many details about the visit or the outcome.

Newsday was unable to get a comment from Hosein.