Residents of Poui Trace protest bad roads and flooding in the area, on Monday 25 July 2022. (Image by RISHI RAGOONATH)

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Po­lice and fire­fight­ers are cur­rent­ly try­ing to dis­man­tle mul­ti­ple fiery road block­ades across Bar­rack­pore, Princes Town and St Mary’s as res­i­dents, farm­ers and taxi dri­vers con­tin­ue to stage protests, to­day.

They are protest­ing to high­light de­plorable road con­di­tions, poor drainage and flood­ing in the re­gion.

The protests start­ed around 8 am at Poui Trace in St Mary’s. Res­i­dents chopped down trees and dragged them to the cen­tre of the road­way along with heaps of tyres, derelict ve­hi­cles and old ap­pli­ances.

It lat­er spread to Gun­ness Trace, Rochard Dou­glas Road and Moru­ga Main Road near La Lune Vil­lage.

Among those caught in the block­ades was a Nu­trim­ix truck­er who was on his way to de­liv­er 10,000 pounds of an­i­mal feeds to farm­ers.

Farmer Arnold Maraj said the nat­ur­al wa­ter­cours­es in the area had been blocked by vil­lagers, re­sult­ing in ex­ten­sive flood­ing.

"I lost 25 crates of bear­ing cab­bages and 20 crates of nurs­ery cab­bages that were al­ready cul­ti­vat­ed and fer­til­ized," he said.

Maraj said the ones who blocked wa­ter­cours­es should be held re­spon­si­ble. He called on the Min­istry of Works and the Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion to clear the drains and fix the roads.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, De­onar­ine Singh of Poui Road, said nat­ur­al wa­ter­cours­es have been blocked by ad hoc de­vel­op­ment.

"The Min­istry of Works al­so did some work near­by and changed the wa­ter­course. They have been try­ing to get the wa­ter up­hill." he told Guardian Me­dia.

He said af­ter the res­i­dents staged protests two weeks ago, a back­hoe was brought in, but min­i­mal work was done.

"The back­hoe was re­moved and is now at a con­struc­tion site where they are build­ing a new ceme­tery," he said.

He al­so ac­cused the Cor­po­ra­tion of do­ing sub-stan­dard work.

Guardian Me­dia will bring you more as this sto­ry un­folds.

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