Vaneisa: Operation of municipal corporations as important as crime plan

Little things add up. Irritants that are not, of themselves, enough to make you feel besieged. Combined and constant, they are damaging to the psyche—the way water dripping away for years can erode rocks.

Feral cats and stray dogs prowling the neighbourhood, stripping garbage bags and shredding the contents. Garbage that lies strewn outside your premises when you have carefully packed it into bags for collection. Sanitation workers who toss them without care. Arbitrary days and times when trucks pass.

Photo: Rubbish!

Roads pock-marked at best, but more often so cavernous and treacherous they cause unwarranted damage to vehicles.

I was not surprised by the volume of responses to my last column of complaints. What I had not known is how widespread it is and how many people identified the San Juan/ Laventille Regional Corporation as the body responsible for their areas. I went again to the website to check out its boundaries.

Here’s what it said:

“The San Juan Laventille boundaries stretch from the Caribbean Sea in the North, across the Northern Range and South through the valleys and foothills to that portion of the East-West Corridor between the city of Port of Spain and the town of St Joseph.

San Juan/ Laventille Regional Corporation chairman Richard Walcott.
Photo: SJLRC.

“The Regional Corporation encompasses the Caroni Swamp on the west central coast, has a land area of 220.4 km² and serves a population of 155,606 persons with most of this population concentrated along and around the East-West corridor (Population and Housing Census 2011).

“It is outlined by Maracas at the western end of the Northern Coast, and La Fillette on the north eastern end. Its southern boundaries include Sea Lots and Beetham Gardens on the south western end, the Caroni River to the south, and the Solomon Hochoy Highway, bounding Mount Hope on the south eastern end.”

It is a far wider stretch than I had imagined, and according to the figure from what must be an outdated population census of 14 years ago, it serves 155,606 people.

One reader indicated that collection days are now Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. That is possibly true, because this week the truck passed on Monday and Wednesday.

Photo: On the job…

I checked the section on the website under News and Articles to see if there had been any public announcement of this change in the schedule. The most recent articles were from 2023, and there was nothing mentioning anything to do with collection days.

I went to the section titled, Announcements, and came across this more specific list of the communities served (2023).

The population was cited as 157,295 and the areas listed are: “Santa Cruz, Maracas Bay, La Fillette, St Ann’s, Cascade, Morvant, San Juan, Febeau Village, Bourg Mulatresse, Malick, Barataria, St Barbs, Chinapoo, Aranguez (I believe it is Aranjuez, and given that the street sign nearby that has been recently replaced has become Broom Street and not Broome, and that the ceremonial sign for Morvant Laventille was revealed with a spelling error, I’d wager that this is an example of sloppiness), Petit Bourg, Champs Fleurs, Mt Lambert, Success Village, Trou Macaque and Laventille.”

Photo: Abandoned vehicles on Hollis Street.
Copyright: VB.

Why am I going into such detail about the ambit of the Corporation?

It’s because I believe that we should know with some exactitude which body is responsible for providing us with certain services.

People talk all the time about how their MPs get elected after canvassing their areas and then disappear into the morass of politics, never to be seen again. Yes, the MPs are vicariously responsible, but it is the municipal corporations which are directly involved in determining the level and quality of service we receive.

Photo: A contractor clears in Sangre Grande at the request of the regional corporation.
Via: Newsday

The appalling lack of communication to the public—an outdated website, the only thing that seems to be current is the page featuring photos of the Council members—all of it points to a kind of disregard for the essence of the Corporation’s functions.

It has been 35 years since these bodies were set up, in 1990, and they haven’t yet assimilated what their role is?

The Minister of Rural Development and Local Government, Faris Al-Rawi, who’s held the post since March 2022, should pull his team together and get them to recognise what they should be doing. I am certain the San Juan/Laventille councillors are not the only ones in need of training on the concept of accountability.

Photo: Minister of Local Government Faris Al-Rawi.

With general elections high on the public radar, it is easy to focus on platform rhetoric and campaign absurdities. Crime has become the most virulent public scourge, no question of that, and it provides ample fodder for electioneering.

It isn’t the only element of our societal living that has people down in the dumps.

Though we live with the spectre of violence and thuggery that hangs like a ghoulish shroud over us, we are still trying to go about our daily lives nonetheless.

Despite the conditions of the state of emergency, life has not fundamentally changed.

My point is that the things that batter us are little, persistent ones that are exhausting and irritating—like tinnitus, that constant ringing in the ear that only you can hear—and make you feel that there is nothing you can do to find relief.

The little things that rise up every day and kick you in the shin and scuttle off while you’re still grimacing in pain.

It’s worse when you feel that you’re a part of a society where nobody cares, not even the ones who are paid to do so.

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