A resident of Canefield, East Canje is fearful that his concrete house would collapse, contending that the erection of a Digicel telephone tower has caused it to crack and sections of his yard to start “sinking”
Pradeep Kuma told Stabroek News (SN) recently that apart from those problems, the vibrations during construction had caused the tiles in his bathroom to loosen and his windows to break.
He is contending that “if my house is supposed to last 50 years, it can’t last so long anymore.”
A Digicel official told this newspaper, when contacted, that the engineers that Kuma would have spoken to during the construction phase have already left the country.
Further he said, “The management team was unaware of the problem and now that we are aware of it we have taken immediate steps to have it corrected.”
The man said since he realized that the tower would have been so close he became fearful of his house being affected.
The left side of his house, he said, is just 16 feet away from the company’s fence. According to him, the company “dug a base about 15 to 20 feet down and drove about six piles and that caused the house to crack.”
While the piles were being driven, he said, he brought officials from the Canefield/ Adelphi Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC) to have a look and was told that Digicel would repair the place. He subsequently wrote a letter to the NDC but got no response.
He opined that a tower of that magnitude should have been assembled in a big, open space and wondered who had given permission for it to be in a residential area.
“How they [Digicel] could come in a residential area and drive piles so close to people’s house?” he questioned. He said he had brought the problems to the attention of the company’s engineers when they visited during the construction.
The engineers examined the affected sections on two occasions and even took photographs and “promised to return to paste the cracks and to offer compensation.”
But Kuma is disappointed that he has not heard from them again. He was also given a telephone number for a construction engineer he should call to arrange a time to visit him in Georgetown.
But for the past two months he was unable to get through to that number and has learnt that the man had been on leave.
He is afraid that the company would not heed his complaints and said that has prompted him to highlight the issue in this newspaper.
Kuma said he wrote a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and asked them to examine the issue.
He said he got a response from an official of EPA (name given) who promised to send someone but so far this has not happened.
Contacted for a comment, the official admitted receiving the letter but said he “cannot divulge information.”
Meanwhile the problem does not stop there for Kuma and other nearby residents who complained that the stench from a portable toilet belonging to the company is affecting them terribly.
Kuma said the toilet is just a few feet away from his yard and he is bearing the brunt of the stench, especially when the security guards who use it open and close the door and “when the wind blows it around.”
