Commuters plying the New Amsterdam to East Bank Berbice route will now have to pay higher fares.
This was the stand taken yesterday by the EBB Hire Car Association and its President Mohamed Ally. Hire car operators parked their vehicles alongside the dilapidated EBB road yesterday to silently protest the conditions of the road.
Alliance For Change Executive Members, Gerhard Ramsaroop and Nigel Hughes arrived, too, to lend their support. Chartered Accountant, Christopher Ram was also present.
Hughes, in speaking with Stabroek News, voiced his sympathy over “the government’s neglect for the people of this neighbourhood”. He expressed how important it is for a road for the development of any community “and for a community to be sustained and the fact that they have allowed this road to reach this deplorable state where people can’t get to work and sugar workers can’t get to the fields, civil servants and private sector workers can’t get to work, especially given the recent visit by the President to Highbury…and he was in Tain yesterday (Wednesday) and he didn’t even have the time to visit the people who clearly have expressed their frustration at the lack of attention to their vital survival—it speaks volumes to the government’s position and interest or lack of interest to these people”.
Ramotar was at the Guyana Sugar Corporation Port Mourant Training School Graduation of Apprentices on Wednesday.
Hughes said that the people’s efforts need to be supported and that this is not the effort which politicians are going to rush and take to the floor “because this was a movement which resulted in the neglect of the community that live along this road and not a special concentration of any group”.
He added that he has learnt that it takes 2 1/2 hours to travel 25 miles (from N/A to Mara) and most of the people of Mara have abandoned their largely agricultural communities to live in the town. “We need to address this issue both in context and its immediate crisis which it has created”.
Commuters who formerly paid $100 from N/A to Glasgow will now pay $140 and from N/A to Edinburgh $160; while N/A to further up the EBB will have to pay $200.
President of the EBB hire car association, Mohamed Ally was disappointed in President Ramotar’s loud promise at Highbury on May 5, which was met with loud cheers and applause. At Indian Arrival Day celebrations, Ramotar told the hundreds, “I know from experience and I know from our own constituents who complain to me— and I know today by coming in to this village here— that your road is not in a good state”. When he said that, the crowd gave a huge applause.
