-repairs promised in four weeks
Residents of Glasgow and nearby communities on the East Bank Berbice yesterday staged a protest demanding that the road in their area be fixed; standing on the road from 6 am and braving the scorching heat of the sun to demand attention to a problem they say “has been going on for years now.”
Region Six Chairman Zulfikar Mustapha told the residents yesterday that a case had been made to the Ministry of Public Works for a proper road to be built and this would be addressed in another “two to four weeks’ time”. In the meantime, he said the region would continue to do remedial work.
According to Maxwell Semple, the president of the East Bank Berbice Hire Car Association, and a resident of Glasgow, “For years now this is being patched with red, and mud; we never a get a proper road. They never do any proper work here, never.”
He told Stabroek News that the neglect is being reflected in the quality of the road. He does not feel that this neglect has anything to do with race or politics, because “the PNC fail we, now the PPP failing we, who we must turn to next?”
In the event there is a fire, he said, the fire tender will not be able to get to the destination quickly because of the state of the road. “The same thing with police,” he said, they will not be able to get there in a hurry. “Any emergency in the area will be hampered by the holes in the road. And is we gon suffer.”
Another resident, Deodatt Persaud, said the road did not need “patching”, and “emergency work. We want a proper rehabilitation of the East Bank road. Enough is enough, we ain’t able with them dust and mud and other things.” He pointed out that it is the only access road. The community, he said, had tried all other ways of getting the road fixed, including meeting regional officials and accepting the promises that were made to them. “But every time is the same thing. Dem just put some sand so, put some stone there and next thing you know dem holes getting big, big.”
According to Roxanne Warde, whenever it rains parents have to hold their children tightly to prevent them from sliding down in the mud. “Then sometimes cars pass and dem splash mud water on you. You can never get a clean and proper shoes; always with mud. We can’t take it anymore,” she said.
In the midst of the protest some sand and a little stone were sent to patch the road. This sand with stone, the residents said, will “just stay deh for a few morning and then back to square one.”
They said the only time that anything reasonable was done was when Arrival Day celebrations were held at Highbury, “because to get there you need to use that road”.
Rebecca Ellis, an elderly woman of Sisters’ Village, was walking to New Amsterdam yesterday morning, to seek medical attention. She said she understood the protestors’ plight and agrees that there is need for their action because the road is atrocious.
Meanwhile, residents seemed to accept the assurances offered by the regional chairman yesterday. All morning they had been saying that they will not accept “patching” of the road. However, after the visit by Mustapha, they removed to allow the holes in the road to be filled pending further rehabilitation of the road in a month’s time. “But after that is different story,” the residents said.
An engineer who wishes to remain unnamed, told this newspaper he doubted that any major work will be done on the East Bank road “because the water is right over there,” pointing to the Berbice river. He explained that when the water is high in the river, it seeps under the road and gets into the residential area. He said that what this means is that the foundation of the road is too weak to take major repairs. “If you dig six inches down you will find water there. So… you can’t do any major rehabilitation. The river is too close. And they don’t have any sea [river] defence.”
