(Trinidad Express) Fourteen days.
That is the length of time residents of San Francique, Penal, are giving the Government to respond to their cries for better roads, pipe-borne water and for dealing with flooding.
Or the State will face major protest action.
The residents staged a placard protest at Pluck Road yesterday, calling on Minister of Works and Transport Rohan Sinanan to commence work on a landslide they say is threatening their homes and livelihoods.
The road, residents said, is the main access to Fyzabad and Siparia.
UNC MPs Lakram Bodoe and Dave Tancoo, along with Local Government councillors, were among the protesters.
The affected communities are in the Oropouche West constituency.
Tancoo said it was the fourth time in recent months his constituents had taken protest action, pleading with the Ministry of Works and Transport to repair the landslide.
He said, “This landslip is occurring here on a continuous basis and the Government refuses to take note and act. Recently in the Standing Finance Committee, I asked the Minister of Works and Transport when he was going to deal with this landslip, and another one further down where the road has almost completely been severed. And the minister said this area and these landslips were not important enough.”
Tancoo said the landslip was threatening to cut off access to Siparia and Fyzabad, and was damaging properties in the community.
He accused the minister of discriminating against residents in constituencies held by the UNC. And although the landslide was not in his Fyzabad constituency, Bodoe explained that his constituents were directly affected.
He said the roadway was used as the main thoroughfare to Fyzabad and that residents were concerned.
He appealed to Sinanan and Rural Development and Local Government Minister Kazim Hosein to intervene immediately.
Bodoe said he believed Siparia and Fyzabad were not the priority of the Government, but asked that the authorities listen to the cries of the people.
Local Government councillor Doodnath Mayhroo said residents were frustrated and felt neglected by the Government.
“If Rohan Sinanan doesn’t attend to us in the next 14 days, we are calling on him to step down. If he feels Barrackpore and Moruga was bad, I am sending a warning that it will be ten times worse in this area if they do not respond to the cries of the people,” he said.