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Coomacka road a Region Ten nightmare
Coomacka is a community located some 12 miles on the outskirts of Linden; yet a trip by minibus to the central business district, takes about the same time that a minibus takes to commute between Georgetown and Linden—a distance of 66 miles— a little more than an hour.
“The road to Coomacka is in an atrocious state”, residents complain, but according to them, their cries have been falling on deaf ears.
“Is years we suffering. Look at this road, and all we keep getting is promises to fix it, but nothing forthcoming,” irate residents of Coomacka lamented.
The Coomacka to Linden trip should not take more than 20 minutes, but here it is we taking more than an hour, and the ride is extremely uncomfortable,” a bus driver on the tortuous route recently complained.
A vehicle entering a crater in the road.
“How the people in this place surviving is a miracle, because this road ain’t easy at all. I only started working this route about a month now and already I feel like giving up because at the end of the day you tired- you bruk up, and you only making like three trips, because of the terrible state of the road. You vehicle can’t last.”
The road which also leads to Three Friends, Yararibo, Ituni Aroaima and Kwakwani, has for a long time been in a deplorable state.
Commonly referred to as a dry weather road, the recent intermittent rainfall has rendered this thoroughfare almost impassable.
Vehicles have to travel at a snail’s pace, and drivers have to be expert at navigating and meandering around the huge pot holes, which are filled with water.
Some of the holes are however so large that there is no way around them, so driving through them is the only option.
Many vehicles sometimes get stuck in the holes, and have to be pulled out, residents said.
At present, two road construction machines are parked at the Old England/Sibierien Health Centre, but residents are not sure when work on the road would commence.
“We need something to be done about this road. Is long we suffering and nothing has been done. Roads getting built and rehabilitated all over the place, but this road never getting any kind of attention. All that does happen is that sometimes it might get a little grading, but that is not enough, it needs rebuilding- proper rehabilitation, not grading,” one resident opined.
The 2014 budget saw $1B being allocated for the rehabilitation of critical interior roads, including the Linden to Lethem road.
What residents of Coomacka and its environs want to know is, how much of that money will be allocated for the rehabilitation of this critical artery.
However that is not their only concern, as most residents have voiced disapproval about the huge logging and hauler trucks that use the thoroughfare and contribute significantly to its state of disrepair.
“Is either they get another road for these trucks, or have them pay a toll that can go towards the maintenance and rehabilitation of the road.
(Enid Joaquin)
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