Parts of the main access road for Pakuri (St Cuthbert’s) Village collapsed on Sunday night.
Toshao Lenox Shuman yesterday posted a picture of the sections of the road that have collapsed on his Facebook page, showing they were impossible to cross by vehicle.
When contacted yesterday, Shuman explained that the collapse occurred sometime on Sunday night and wasn’t discovered until yesterday morning.
As a result, community members will now have to use a detour, which Shuman said could increase their travel time by more than 30 minutes, depending on the condition of the road.
“It takes a bit longer and it is also in pretty poor shape because it has a lot more potholes. When it rains, it would probably take another 10 to 15 minutes and could even potentially take up to 30 minutes,” Shuman said.
He explained that this isn’t the first issue that they have had with their main access road and it wasn’t until last year when they were preparing for the Heritage Village that the Guyana Defence Force assisted in grading the main thoroughfare. However, since then, he explained that they have not received any assistance in fixing the road.
“We’ve asked everyone for help and no one has rendered any support. The Village Council will have to fix it. We intend to seek volunteer labour where we can and patch where needs to be patched but that is all that we can do,” Shuman added.
He explained that for more than three years they have been making continuous representation to have the road maintained, but to not avail.
He said that every ministry that is charged with supporting Amerindian villages, including the Ministry of Communities, Ministry of Indigenous Peoples’ Affairs, the Regional Democratic Council of Region Four, and the Ministry of Public Infrastructure were asked to help but to no avail.
