The Little Diamond NDC yesterday said it got late notice of the carcasses of cows on its road, one of which later caused a fatal accident.
In any event, the machine usually used for such tasks was down.
“We got reports about the cows like about Sunday evening and Monday morning we saw the news about the accident that somebody died… but the thing about it, is that the access around that area, they have like barriers and stuff so our tractor can’t pass, and two, we have a ‘bobcat’ [skid-steer loader] but our ‘bobcat’ is down right about now, also nobody works on weekends,” Chairman of the Little Diamond\Herstelling Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC), Puneet Jaigopaul, said yesterday when contacted.
The three cows had reportedly died since last Friday.
Jaigopaul also said that due to their “hands being tied” after assessing the situation on Monday, they had to seek help from other agencies yesterday in order for the carcasses to be removed.
This newspaper contacted the chairman of the Golden Grove\Diamond NDC, Indranie Ramnarine, who confirmed that although the road does not fall under her NDC’s jurisdiction, the removal was still carried out by the council.
“So for clarity it did not occur within the boundary of my NDC… but the Grove\Diamond NDC was contacted by officials from the Ministry of Local Government to ask us to aid in the removal this morning and that’s why we would have done it… we received the plea this morning asking for such and that was done about 8 o’clock this morning.”
Many persons around the area, including the family of Narayan say that the stray animals are a constant presence on the road. When asked about this, Jaigopaul responded that persons have been warned many times and decisions were once taken by government officials to deal with the matter, but persons are still disregarding those measures that were put in place.
“Well in 2020 we would have gotten the Minister (Collin) Croal and persons from the Ministry of Agriculture came here on an outreach… and they would’ve reached with all the farmers them and would’ve worked out having lands available to the farmers them to move the cattle there… some persons would’ve gotten land and move their cattle but there are some persons that did not move theirs… it’s a constant back and forth matter with these animal-rearers in that particular community… there are a few persons that rear cows in the old scheme also and these animals are left to roam.”
The police had reported that Narayan at the time was driving his motorcar PGG 9779 south, along the eastern side of the New Diamond Access Road, when he crashed into the carcass which was lying on the same side of the road. As a result, he lost control of his vehicle which toppled several times and collided with a concrete culvert.
Narayan and his wife, Geeta Singh, who was in the front passenger seat of the car, were rushed by public-spirited persons to the Diamond Diagnostic Centre.
Singh was found to be suffering from minor abrasions and was treated and sent away. However Narayan who was in a critical condition was subsequently transferred to the Georgetown Public Hospital where he succumbed to his injuries on Monday at about 06:55hrs in the Male Surgical Ward. (Aviso Paul)
