Cashew Gardens residents protest for Edinburgh Road repairs

FROM 4 am on Tuesday, residents of Cashew Gardens, Carlsen Field, set fire to debris and blocked their already barely passable road to protest its poor condition.

The protest took place the day after residents of Moruga and Barrackpore burnt tyres and debris, demanding that their roads be fixed.

Speaking with Newsday on Tuesday, councillor for the area John Lezama said the issue has been a concern for the Couva/Tabaquite/Talparo Regional Corporation for years now.

“That road has been in that condition for the longest while because of the (number) of people traversing the road, the road has become worse.”

The road is the Edinburgh Road, Longdenville, which leads to a Housing Development Corporation (HDC) settlement at Cashew Gardens. Residents said calls to have the road repaired over time had not been addressed.

Lezama said he too is frustrated by the condition of the road, as he uses it almost daily, but the ire of the residents should be directed to the ministries of Local Government and Finance. He said the cost of fixing the road is above the overall annual budget of the corporation.

“There is nothing that the corporation at this point in time can do without funding. You can’t do anything without money, and if the government does not release the money...

"We have people supposedly directing their anger to us when it is not the councillor or the corporation. They should be directing their anger to the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Rural Development.”

Newsday called the two ministers with responsibility for roads, Local Government Minister Faris Al-Rawi and Works and Transport Rohan Sinanan on Tuesday, but neither answered.

Lezama said to address the concerns of their burgesses, councillors receive approximately $300,000 annually and the cost of repairing the road is over $2 million.

“The councillors’ hands are tied; there is nothing, absolutely nothing the councillor can do. We don't even get recurrent money to buy materials to fix roads, so how are we going to attempt to fix it?”

In any case, the issue is more than just the road, Lezama said, as poor drainage is a major factor contributing to its condition.

“This entire area is plagued with landslips and bad roads. Numerous requests were made to have these works done."

Lezama said heavy vehicles use the road, adding to its deterioration.

He also said there is a river near the road with an improper embankment wall that is in need of repair. In the past, some repairs had been done, he said.

"On two occasions measurements were taken. This road was rehabilitated under the People’s Partnership under Dr Glenn Ramadharsingh when he was MP for the area.”

Ramadharsingh, the former MP for Caroni Central. was replaced in 2015 by Arnold Ram.

Ram, in a phone interview, said he had sent at the very least three letters to Sinanan and Al-Rawi’s predecessor Kazim Hosein, asking for the road to be fixed.

He said in a meeting with residents recently, they were not inclined to protest and Tuesday’s action was just the culmination of frustration over their unanswered requests.

“Any where south of Caroni suffers from what I call geographical neglect. This complaint is throughout Trinidad and Tobago, and more so areas where the UNC are in control,” Ram said, adding he intends to demonstrate this discrimination by requesting a list of projects done by the Rural Development Company and compare work done in PNM and UNC areas.