Prime Minister acknowledges Trinidad and Tobago's poor roads, promises relief

On Tuesday night, the Prime Minister acknowledged the bad state of the country’s roads and promised to focus on road improvement.

Speaking at a PNM public meeting at the Belmont Community Centre on Tuesday night, he said, during the pandemic, the government had to prioritise people’s lives.

“This government acknowledges that the roads in this country would have deteriorated considerably. We acknowledge that. You know why? During 2020 and 2021, we spent the money keeping you alive and there was not sufficient money to spend on road repairs.”

Dr Rowley said, because of the $13 billion budget deficit in fiscal 2021, the money was being borrowed “from the bank.”

Now that the country was in a better financial position, he said Cabinet approved a road-repair company in the Ministry of Local Government and a board was appointed.

Soon, Rowley said, the Finance Minister would make money available to the company and contractors would be mobilised to fix the roads.

He said the government would also reform local government as the Local Government Reform Bill was passed in the Senate on June 14. However, it was yet to be proclaimed and the whole bill would not be proclaimed all at once.

He recalled arranging a meeting of local government officers on August 9 at the Government Campus Plaza, Richmond Street, Port of Spain for the government to tell them how the reform would be operationalised.

“Guess what? The Opposition not supporting that. And the leader, hysterical in her virtual appearance in one of her Monday night rants, telling her members, ‘Don’t go because the Prime Minister go bouf you.’

"What a stupid woman! I never know that ignorance is a position of strength.

"So you want to be ignorant about the proclamation of the law, so you don’t come, so you remain ignorant, and then, of course, you will go by your friends in the media and talk all kinds of nonsense after. Because you refuse even to know what the government intends to do.”