PNM senator: Tobago roads deplorable

PNM senator Laurence Hislop says Tobago’s roads are in a deplorable condition and in urgent need of repair.

During a news conference on Tuesday at the PNM’s headquarters in Scarborough, Hislop declared, “This is the worst I have seen our road infrastructure as far back as I could remember.”

Saying Tobagonians have always been proud of the island’s road network, he added, “It has not been an idle boast."

But Hislop observed within the last 20 months, “We have been facing a deteriorating road condition.

“If you are honest with yourselves and you drive throughout this island, there is not a community that has escaped what we are talking about…the lack of maintenance of our road network.”

He recalled the THA had boasted about an app that would allow Tobagonians to identify potholes and other road defects in their communities.

“Citizens would be able to report a pothole on their streets and the division would have been able to pick up on that and, within short order, been able to repair.

“But since this administration came into office, all we have been receiving as it relates to the deteriorating road conditions in Tobago are promises – either promises or blame, from the lack of bitumen to the lack of equipment.

“I have to put it down to just a pure inability to administrate the repairs and maintenance of our roads.”

Hislop, who is also the Tobago Council’s PRO, cited a Lowlands road as an example of one in dire need of repair.

“This was a project that was started and stopped. It was a project that was being done before the election – resurfacing of All Fields Crown Trace – and for whatever reason that project has been stopped and has not been restarted.

“I could feel it for the residents and even some of us who may use it as an alternative route from time to time to get into Carnbee – you are faced with not potholes, but craters.”

He urged the Division of Infrastructure, Quarries and Urban Development to “put their plans into effect and fix both areas of All Fields Crown Trace, because both of them are in significant need of repair.”

Hislop said driving on pothole-riddled roads during the rainy season presented an even greater challenge.

“What makes it more difficult in the rainy season is that when you are driving on a roadway that is filled with water, you don’t know there is a pothole. And so you run the risk of not only damaging your vehicle, but causing an accident if you are swerving from potholes.”

He urged the THA to use Tobago’s contractors to repair its defective roads.

Hislop also complained about the Scarborough boardwalk, saying the structure was also deteriorating from lack of maintenance.