After days of intense protests by residents, repair works have commenced on the access road to Kuru Kuru, on the Soesdyke-Linden Highway.
Dozens of residents continued their protest yesterday for emergency works to the access road and to their surprise help came yesterday.
Speaking to Stabroek News last evening, resident Samuel Wilson said, “They commenced some works on the road today. They started to grade and they brought in some materials and are presently doing work on the road.”
“They are working on areas that are bad because they said they would not have budgeted for repairs on the entire road, so they will deal with the bad parts of the road so that vehicles can actually travel on the road,” Wilson noted.
This, he said, has given some reassurance to residents, and especially the parents, who led the protest due to fears that their children were being imperilled while using the road to travel to school.
However, Wilson noted that residents will monitor the works very closely to ensure that the road is safe for their children and residents in general to travel on in the large buses, without having to worry about being stuck in the sand or the possibility of the bus toppling.
“We still intend to continue protesting until we see everything is done but it wouldn’t be to the extent that it would’ve been on Monday. We are very much grateful for it and that they are looking out for the interest of the children,” he noted, while stating that the parents haven given the greenlight for their children to return to school but will remain vigilant.
The protest started on Monday morning at 8 am after the residents stated that their frustration had reached its pinnacle in the previous week when a bus transporting school children from the village and surrounding areas almost toppled while traversing the road. As a result, the residents took the decision to protest and keep their children from school.
The residents had pointed out that their main thoroughfare has not had any comprehensive repair works done on it for more than two decades and had been left to deteriorate. It has reached a state where large vehicles could not go beyond certain points.
The protestors stressed that whenever government officials visited the area, they would refuse to use the road and would often use other smaller access roads to manoeuvre around the more deplorable sections.
“How is that fair? You are forcing these children to climb a hill, because you can’t call it a road anymore, with a big bus, packed but you frighten yourself to use it? How is that even fair? If nothing is wrong with the road then everybody should use it,” a parent argued.
The residents had said that they would keep protesting until their calls were answered and either someone sits with them to have a conversation on what could be done to remedy the situation or the government takes the initiative and does remedial works on the road.
On the third day, more than 25 residents, including parents, came out and protested from 8 am until 3pm.
When Stabroek News had surveyed the approximately 4-kilometre stretch of road on Monday, potholes of varying sizes and other structural faults were observed. Heavy erosion was also seen, and for large stretches, the shoulders of the road, which are made of thick sand, merged with the asphalt. Thick deposits of mud and pools of water, which the residents described as vehicle traps, were also observed.
The residents had explained on Tuesday that an official from the Community Development Council, who had identified himself as Mr. Boyce, had explained that the road was slated to be done in the new budget.
