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Road
construction equipment belonging to Seereram Bros. parked
on Country Club property as the Ministry of Works pursues
road widening on Maraval Road.
BY
VERNE BURNETT
Works and Transport Minister Colm Imbert insisted yesterday
that Joseph Fernandes, the owner of the Country Club in
Maraval, was repeatedly notified by the ministry about the
road improvement project to be undertaken on the Saddle
Road in Maraval.
In addition to publication of the Land Acquisition notices
months ago, Imbert said his ministry wrote to Fernandes
a number of times about the publication of the notices,
and even sent him copies of the notices as well as the plans
for the roadworks.
Imbert was reacting to Fernandes’ accusations that
the Works Ministry was trespassing on his property. In an
article in Thursday’s Guardian, Fernandes accused the
ministry of breaching his property on the Saddle Road side.
Fernandes charged that “The Ministry of Works broke
into the back entrance, gained access to the property, damaged
a huge old tamarind tree and set up camp on the property
- all under police guard.”
Fernandes described the ministry’s approach as “gross
intimidation” and said that as far as he was concerned,
“this is trespass.”
However, Imbert said Fernandes was written to on March 12,
2007, notifying him that the ministry “intends to enter
onto the affected lands on or around March 26th, 2007.”
The letter added that the Land Acquisition notices published
in the Trinidad Gazette gave the ministry or its agents
“the authority to enter upon your property for the
purpose of construction of the improvement to Maraval Access.”
Imbert said the ministry’s files contain the delivery
slips on which staff at the Country Club signed accepting
the letters.
The March 12, 2007 letter went on to state that, “The
selected contractor Seereram Bros. Ltd. intends to erect
a site office at the north east quadrant on Country Club’s
compound and hereby requests the keys for the north east
gate located along Saddle Road. This entrance would be used
by the contractors to access and egress the area. Also,
hoarding would be erected at least ten (10) meters along
the western edge staked by the Acquisition Surveyor and
seedlings would be purchased to replace the trees that fall
within the proposed reserve.”
Imbert said the first land acquisition notice was published
in 2005 and a second was published in 2006. The minister
said Fernandes was written to on November 29, 2006, when
he was informed that the ministry was about to begin the
constrction phase of the project. The letter, copies of
which were sent to other landowners and businesses in the
affected area, contained apologies for any inconvennience
that would be caused by the construction, pointing out that
it was “absolutely necessary” to improve the “daily
congestion” of Saddle Road.
Another letter, dated December 21, 2006, referred to the
publication of the Land Acquisition notices, and stated
the publication gave the Ministry of Works and Transport
and its agents authority to enter the property to execute
the project.
It stated that the land to be acquired was about “5287.58
square metres, more or less.” The ministry even drove
stakes into the land so Fernandes could have a practical
idea of the amount of property involved.
At a post-Cabinet news conference yesterday and in a conversation
with the Guardian, Imbert said the roadworks would include
a roundabout at the intersection at the Maraval KFC outlet
to replace the traffic lights at that junction.
Referring to an article about the project in yesterday’s
Guardian, Imbert said the project was approved by Cabinet
three years ago, not ten years ago as reported in the
Guardian story.
He also said he did not meet Fernandes at his wineshop within
the last month to discuss the project as stated in the paper.
Imbert acknowledged that he and Fernandes did have a discussion
about the project in Fernandes’ wine shop, but that
was more than one year ago.
In a letter to the editor, Imbert added that “in addition
to the publication of the mandatory legal notices several
months ago, and the completion of the designs and site surveys
for the road improvement project by a team of local and
British engineering consultants almost one year ago, I had
made it clear to Mr. Fernandes on a number of occasions
in various different places and forums over the last 15
years, including a well-attended meeting with residents
of the area several years ago, that acquisition of a strip
of land within the Country Club property was found by the
experts to be the most appropriate solution to the problem
of traffic congestion in Maraval.”
He said that the need for expansion of the road “has
been discused at length at every meeting with residents
that I have attended in my capacity as the MP for the Maraval
area over the past 15 years, and at every single meeting
the overwhelming consensus was the widening of the Saddle
Road at this location, among other road improvement projects,
was absolutely necesary and long
overdue.”
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