Parfaite residents trek miles to find transportation

Jan 10, 2012 News

– want government to urgently fix roads

Residents of Harmony Drive, La Parfaite Harmonie and Westminster, West Bank Demerara, are calling for the urgent works on a number of roads that are in a deplorable state there.
Minibuses and taxis are refusing to enter the area. The roads have worsened in recent weeks amidst heavy rainfall.
Residents from Westminster Phase II are now forced to walk as much as a mile through mud and water in search of transportation.
It is the same situation for residents of nearby new schemes of Onderneeming and Recht-Door-Zee. The “Dairy Road” from the popular “Four Corners” – leading to those two schemes is also in a terrible state.

No transportation: Residents living in Onderneeming Phase Two walk the mile-long road to home as no minibuses or taxis are willing to traverse the roads.

“I have to leave home six in the morning and walk because minibuses not coming in. You should see how the children going to school making out. It is a sad thing. Harmony Drive is our main entrance,” complained Doris, a grandmother who works in the city.
According to another mother, who said she and her two children have to trek up to one mile everyday to get in and out from Onderneeming Phase Two, cows in the area are also posing a danger to property and lives.
“I know of cows running children and when we talk to the owner, he seh that he use to mine he cows in here before we come and he gun continue to do it. He live till in Canal Number One.”
Residents who use the “Dairy Farm” road to access Onderneeming and Recht-Door-Zee have also complained of rampant robberies.
“I even heard stories recently that an Amerindian girl jumped in the trench after she and another girl get attack by some men. Her friend they say get rape but people not talking…they shame.”
Last year, several contracts were signed for roads, especially La Parfaite Harmonie, a neighbouring scheme and a section of the Harmony Drive was completed.
A Housing Ministry official yesterday said that projects for this year are being prepared and work for these roads and the others will more than likely be included.
Following the signing of the $70M contracts with Eagle Transportation and General Construction Inc. and Courtney Benn Contracting Services Limited, it was disclosed that some 3.4 kilometers of double bituminous surface treatment (DBST) surfaced roads and 1.7 km of asphaltic concrete roads would have been completed to benefit over 500 house lots and 2,000 persons.
Housing Minister, Irfaan Ali, had said that 67 per cent of the road networks in the scheme would have been surfaced.
The Ministry, because of limited resources, was only upgrading streets in the schemes that had occupancy rates of over 75 per cent.
It is estimated that around 27,000 live in those new housing schemes in that West Bank Demerara area, the Ministry said last year.