Skip to playerSkip to main content
CCNTV6
  • 2 months ago
The weather brought flooding throughout the country but for those of you who work, live or even ventured into Port of Spain on Monday the city was a nightmare to traverse.

Joining us to talk about his members experience is President of the Downtown Owners and Merchant Association Gregory Aboud.
Transcript
00:00Well, the weather brought flooding throughout the country, but for those of us who work, live or even ventured into Port of Spain today, the city was a nightmare to traverse.
00:08Well, joining us now to talk about his members' experience as President of the Downtown Owners and Merchants Association, Gregory Aboot.
00:16Good evening, Mr. Abu. Thank you for joining us.
00:19Thank you very much. Good evening to you.
00:21Well, can you paint a picture and tell us what the experience was like today for your members?
00:25Well, I mean, it's not an unfamiliar situation to us or to anyone else.
00:32The fact is that as soon as the clouds get dark or as soon as we see a rain squall on its way, we immediately feel the impact on the city in terms of the number of people who leave Port of Spain.
00:48And I think that apart from the number of people that leave the city, there is a greater number of people that simply don't venture from their homes or anywhere else as soon as they see rain on its way or as soon as the sky gets dark.
01:03So apart from the fact that that causes a predictable effect on the business that we do, is the greater impact of what it does to the entire country with respect to our ability to move around and also to get home, to be very honest.
01:23I mean, the fact is that the surface flooding that occurs subsides when the rain stops.
01:31Yes, it is inconvenient.
01:32If the rain is a persistently long shower, it will take some time to move from wherever we are.
01:40But when the rain stops, the water runs off.
01:43Yes, that is a fact.
01:44It is perhaps a function of the great amount of development that has taken place in the last 30 or 40 years without any great addition in drainage and or other infrastructure.
01:58I mean, Port of Spain itself, the city of Port of Spain, still exists with the identical drainage infrastructure that the British left us when we became independent in 1962.
02:11We haven't added anything to it.
02:14The East Dry River is an excellent example of that.
02:17And so what we are experiencing really is a massive impact on the entire country when the rain falls.
02:24I mean, I am sure that it is very well known to you and to all of those persons watching tonight that the traffic becomes excruciating as soon as the rain falls.
02:33Mr. Abboud, do you think it has been worse than usual in the last few weeks or last couple of weeks, last month or so?
02:41Well, I don't think that it has been worse in the last few weeks.
02:45And of course, that is a very sensitive question these days because the political posturing itself has created this sort of us and them debate about whose fault is it and so on.
02:58That's not really my purview or the purview of us in downtown Port of Spain.
03:03I don't think it's much worse in these past few weeks.
03:05What I would say is that as the population of motor vehicles on the road increases, as the amount of public transportation decreases, what we end up with is gridlock for very little other reason than the lack of management.
03:24I mean, you could sit in traffic for two hours and you would know about the excruciating nature of the traffic by how many sirens you hear, because the sirens are used for the persons in authority to get through the traffic.
03:39But would you see anybody stopping at an intersection to let the traffic flow through that intersection where there is a big buildup?
03:48No, you won't.
03:49And there are a number of other issues that could be drawn to the public's attention and to the government's attention about the lack of involvement of those charged with managing infrastructure and traffic management and the rest of it when the rain falls.
04:06Well, Mr. Aboud, we understand that your organization sent a letter to the transport minister, Eli Zakharu, today.
04:12What are you hoping to achieve by this?
04:15Well, we first of all felt that it was a very progressive move to appoint a transportation minister.
04:21We felt that selecting that particular portfolio and setting it apart from the traditional Ministry of Work's portfolio was a very progressive move simply because this issue of gridlock and traffic and congestion and people taking three hours to come to work and two hours to go home and school children being stuck in traffic and so on is a pressing matter for the country.
04:46And we believe that Mr. Zakharu has presented a couple of very good options for the country so far.
04:52He has spoken about good initiatives and we have a few initiatives for him, which we would like to share with him.
04:59We enunciated a lot of it in our correspondence today.
05:02And we are very hopeful that we could get something done.
05:08I would like to, with your permission, mention that we feel very confident about the pronouncements that many of the ministers have made.
05:17But we know from experience, from dealing with other regimes and other parties in power, that the wishes and promises are very difficult to implement because once you get below ministerial level, you get into the public service where you have to be dependent upon them for implementation.
05:37And to be honest, it's not happening.
05:39Ministers make very excellent pronouncements, but we don't get the implementation.
05:43Minister Barry Padarat set a very good tone in his meeting with the ODPM, in which he said to them, come down out of your ivory tower and get out into the public sphere and serve the public.
05:58We think that is a call that could be made to many other ministries and many other departments upon whom the public are depending.
06:06A case in point are the regional corporations.
06:09Everybody is saying that there is bush growing everywhere because there is no CPEP.
06:14But what about the billions of dollars that have been given to regional corporations?
06:19What are they doing?
06:20Why do we not have the drains being cleaned and the debris being removed?
06:25Why do people in Maraval have to take it upon themselves to clean the drainage after the school in Ellerslie Plaza and everything else flooded?
06:32Go down there themselves and take appliances out of the underground drains.
06:36Where are the regional corporations in all of this flooding?
06:39Where are they?
06:41And what are they doing?
06:42Are good questions to ask.
06:44And we believe that Minister Zakou, if he was to adopt a bit of the posture of Minister Padarat in being impatient about implementation, can help us.
06:56We have some very novel ideas about traffic management.
07:00Some of them are a layover from the previous minister and some of them are new.
07:04And we believe that we are hopeful we will get results after meeting with the Minister of Transport.
07:12All right.
07:12Thank you very much, Mr. Aboud, for joining us to share that information with us.
07:16And we'll catch up with you after your meeting.
07:19Yes, please.
07:20Thank you very much.
07:21And have a good evening, Trinidad and Tobago.
07:23Let's check it out.
07:24Let's check it out.
07:24Let's check it out.
07:24Let's check it out.
07:25Let's check it out.
07:25Let's check it out.
07:25Let's check it out.
07:26Let's check it out.
07:26Let's check it out.
07:27Let's check it out.
07:28Let's check it out.
07:29Let's check it out.
07:30Let's check it out.
07:31Let's check it out.
07:32Let's check it out.
07:33Let's check it out.
07:34Let's check it out.
07:35Let's check it out.
07:36Let's check it out.
07:37Let's check it out.
07:38Let's check it out.
07:39Let's check it out.
07:40Let's check it out.
07:41Let's check it out.
07:42Let's check it out.
07:43Let's check it out.
07:44Let's check it out.
Be the first to comment
Add your comment