Baksh cleans Barrackpore

...residents drop off garbage
Carolyn Kissoon South Bureau

Monday, June 28th 2010

Minister of Community Development Nizam Baksh hopped onto a motorcycle and rode through his constituency yesterday, where he cleaned clogged drains, cleared debris and handed out plants.

Baksh said contractors were mobilised and residents were informed to drop off all garbage at a collection site in Barrackpore a week ago. The garbage was collected in trucks yesterday and taken to the Forres Park landfill in Claxton Bay.

The campaign was part of Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s nationwide clean-up and beautification drive to help alleviate this country’s perennial flooding problem. Persad-Bissessar said the Clean and Beautify Trinidad and Tobago (C&B T&T) programme included Government, corporate, private business persons and citizens all working together to clean-up the country, by clearing waterways and getting rid of the garbage that pollutes the roadways and beaches. Baksh was among several Members of Parliament who joined volunteers to clean-up their constituencies yesterday. Baksh said more than 500 plants were distributed to residents at the Barrackpore Regional Complex. ’And we would continue to give out plants every two weeks. This is a ministry project and we would be going into other counties,’ he said. Baksh then climbed onto his motorbike and went to Rochard Road, Barrackpore, where he planted trees and ensured the garbage collection site was being cleared. He said drains were being cleared in an attempt to alleviate flooding in his constituency. ’I am thankful to all these volunteers who came out to be part of this clean-up and beautify programme. They have been working since they launched the programme here in Barrackpore last week,’ he said. San Fernando West MP Carolyn Seepersad-Bachan said she too was pleased with the turnout in her constituency. The volunteers worked alongside community-based Environmental Protection and Enhancement Programme (CEPEP) and Unemployment Relief Programme (URP) workers. A recycling centre was set up at Gulf View, La Romaine, where contributors were rewarded with a plant, Seepersad-Bachan said. ’I am overwhelmed by the turn- out we have today. We began cleaning up in Marabella, near the cemetery, King’s Wharf and along the waterfront,’ she said. Seepersad-Bachan added that truckloads of white waste were removed from the Gulf of Paria. The San Fernando Business Association, corporate citizens and residents participated in the exercise. The equipment was donated by businessmen in San Fernando. Marlene Coudray, chief executive officer at the San Fernando City Corporation, said a hotline was set up, where residents called in for trucks and backhoes to remove debris in their communities. Earlier in the day, at a similar exercise at Beetham Gardens, Port of Spain, Persad-Bissessar said she plans to introduce civics as a subject to be in schools. She said children should learn from an early stage a sense of national pride and civics education could do that. Trinbagonians, she added, need to recommit and rededicate themselves to ’our land’, as she called on the residents to join hands and hearts in making that dream a reality. The Prime Minister, who planted an Acalypha plant, was well received by the residents, who called her ’mother’. -reporting by Jensen La Vende Source: http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article_news?id=161707316