By DARCEL CHOY Thursday, November 26 2009

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HARD WORK: A policeman removes tyres thrown across the road in Morvant by protesting residents yesterday. ...

MORVANT taxi drivers expressed their anger and frustration over bad roads by staging a fiery protest yesterday morning on the Lady Young Road. The drivers used tyres that were set on fire to block the road, moments after they were removed by the Morvant police.

Representative for the taxi drivers, Terrance Paul said they were fed up of getting unfulfilled promises.

“Enough is enough; it has been years we are protesting the state of the roads in the area and nothing, absolutely nothing has been done.

We are just tired and fed up, and we saw it necessary that we take drastic action,” he said..

Paul, a driver in the area for over eight years said while the Lady Young Road was paved recently, they were left to suffer. “The roads are deplorable and they just bypass us.

“Just because these dignitaries are coming, they pave the Lady Young, but what about us? We are the ones that vote these people in office, why must we reach to this point? Why must we have to block roads to get notice?” he said.

He insisted if they saw that nothing was being done they were not going to work.

“The residents would have to be the ones to suffer; it is unfortunate but we are just tired. If after that and nothing changes we would have no choice but to raise the fares,” he said.

A few residents were in an uproar after the police removed the tyres because according to them, Garth Valentine, a security guard at Almond Court was wrongfully arrested as they accused him of setting the tyres on fire.

“He is innocent, the man don’t even have a car, not even a bicycle, and they arrest him for something he had no part of, that is wrong; the taxi drivers need to tell the truth so they could let him go,” one female resident expressed.

When Newsday contacted the MP for the area Minister in the Ministry of National Security Donna Cox, she gave assurance the roads would be fixed “as soon as possible.”

She explained, she met with the taxi drivers on Monday telling them to “hold up a little while longer” as the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) was doing major works in the area.

“Before the roads are fixed, the repair work must be completed. Right now they are connecting a new main so more people would be able to get improved water pressure,” she said. The minister revealed that she spoke to both the minister of Works and Transport and the minister of Local Government about repairing the roads.