Residents in Belle West Phase 2 speak out about roads
scheme. Although a few access streets on the eastern side were done, many of the inner streets are littered with potholes also.
“They do all of the access road on the [eastern half] of Phase Two and I don’t know why they left our side… the streets like trench. Even streetlights they got. Their roads are not perfect but they still have access in and out. They only thing they got just as bad as we is the water”, King (only name given), another resident in the area said. Jairam Latchman who had arrived at home while this newspaper was there was eager to share his plight. As a taxi driver, he has to traverse the roads in the area daily. He lives in Third Street, but, because of the condition of the street, he has to use another street as a detour from the real bad ones to get home. “We understand that the government just gone in and money might be an excuse but you can’t put people to live in this condition. It really tough, especially when rain fall. We’re living in a pond”, Latchman said.
He further shared that even the road he takes to come home is filled with huge potholes. Latchman said that when it rains, a large portion of the street seems like a trench and is covered by so much water, that when he is driving he cannot tell where exactly the potholes are; he has to go through about seven of them in a stretch. Latchman said he was forced to re-invest lots of money in maintenance on his vehicle and declared that being a taxi operator was his only source of income. One of the vertical streets, situated at the furthest end, interconnects with the back dam. As a result, farmers with their tractors use this street to get to their farms, however, the resident was quick to point out that the farmers’ access to the backdam runs through a separate community, known as Clay Brick community. The Phase Two community is also in dire need of proper drainage.
Access to water
“Road and water are my biggest concerns”, Tulsieram Roopchand of Fourth Street said. “By the time 6 o’clock in the morning when people start using the water, we don’t get water anymore until night. Some of the people in Phase Two would get a slow pressure but we who living on the high lots don’t get during the day. The condition of the water is another story, it full of rust. We got other issues like not having streetlights but the main concern is the road and the water”, said Roopchand.
Another resident, who asked to remain anonymous, said that many of Phase Two residents have to fill up their barrels so that water is available for use during the day. She noted that she has a water pump which is, most times, of no use because when the water stops running and she decides to pump water, no water comes through the line as she lives on land situated on a higher level. She believes that another reason contributing to their water issues are persons who have squatted on the front half of Phase Two within the past month. Though most of the squatters are said to be Venezuelan nationals, it is believed that squatting originated with locals, and ever since, both have continued to build their homes in that space. These persons, she said, have been observed taking water illegally from the main.