Motorists frustrated by drainage, pothole blame game

RALPH BAN­WARIE

GML Cor­re­spon­dent

Mo­torists and res­i­dents in San­gre Grande say they are get­ting the runaround from the Min­istry of Works' Guaico of­fice and the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion as they seek ac­tion on drainage prob­lems and de­te­ri­o­rat­ing roads.

Mor­ris Noel said res­i­dents be­come frus­trat­ed when they re­port poor road con­di­tions be­cause of­fi­cials of­ten tell them the is­sue does not fall un­der their ju­ris­dic­tion, leav­ing them un­sure where to turn next.

They al­so claimed con­tact­ing their MPs is a waste of time be­cause calls of­ten go unan­swered and promised call­backs nev­er come.

With the rainy sea­son un­der­way, res­i­dent Sankar said large pot­holes have filled with wa­ter, forc­ing dri­vers to dri­ve through them and dam­age their ve­hi­cles.

Mo­torists al­so have to swerve around the pot­holes, cre­at­ing a safe­ty haz­ard that could lead to ac­ci­dents.

Pedes­tri­ans us­ing the pave­ments are al­so be­ing splashed by stag­nant rain­wa­ter as ve­hi­cles pass.

A res­i­dent who iden­ti­fied her­self on­ly as Shirley told Guardian Me­dia, "You know how it feels when you are prop­er­ly dressed to have wa­ter set­tling in pot­holes splashed on you."

She called on both the Min­istry of Works' Guaico of­fice and the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion to re­pair the pot­holes in­stead of blam­ing each oth­er.

"It is time to stop the blame game and serve the peo­ple," she said.

Res­i­dents point­ed to two ma­jor prob­lem ar­eas, one at the be­gin­ning of Pic­ton Road in San­gre Grande, where a pot­hole has be­come a small pond de­spite re­peat­ed com­plaints, and an­oth­er on the East­ern Main Road near the Roy­al Cas­tle fast food out­let.

They said both roads car­ry heavy dai­ly traf­fic, mak­ing the con­di­tions par­tic­u­lar­ly dan­ger­ous. They al­so point­ed out that the prob­lem ar­eas are close to both the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion and the Min­istry of Works' Guaico of­fice.

When con­tact­ed, San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Ken­wyn Phillip said the cor­po­ra­tion is do­ing its best to ad­dress prob­lems with the lim­it­ed re­sources avail­able.

Of­fi­cials from the Min­istry of Works' Guaico of­fice could not be reached for com­ment.