SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

shar­lene.ram­per­sad@guardian.co.tt

Moru­ga/Table­land is a mar­gin­al con­stituen­cy in Trinidad’s south­land with 27, 851 reg­is­tered vot­ers.

The con­stituen­cy com­pris­es 35 polling di­vi­sions and was cre­at­ed for the 2007 Gen­er­al Elec­tion. It was made up of 20 polling di­vi­sions drawn from the for­mer Or­toire/Ma­yaro con­stituen­cy, six from the Princes Town con­stituen­cy and five from the Na­pari­ma con­stituen­cy. This new con­stituen­cy was named Princes Town South/Table­land. For the 2010 gen­er­al elec­tion, the con­stituen­cy was re­named Moru­ga/Table­land and the polling di­vi­sions re­mained the same.

A mar­gin­al con­stituen­cy is one where the dif­fer­ence in votes be­tween the first and sec­ond can­di­date is 3,000 or less.

In the 2007 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, Table­land was a part of the Princes Town South/Table­land con­stituen­cy. In that elec­tion, while Princes Town North went to the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), Princes Town South/Table­land was cap­tured by Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) can­di­date Pe­ter Tay­lor.

Tay­lor got 9,108 votes. His op­po­nents, Con­gress of the Peo­ple’s (COP) Desmond Lam­bert, got 1,465 votes, while the UNC’s Clifton De Coteau got 7,925 votes. Of the 25,301 el­i­gi­ble vot­ers, on­ly 18,607 ex­er­cised their fran­chise.

In 2010, when Moru­ga/Table­land was re-named from the for­mer Princes Town South/Table­land, Princes Town North was re­named Princes Town.

On that oc­ca­sion, De Coteau was able to cap­ture the seat with 11,628 votes. PNM’s Au­gus­tus Thomas got 8,947 votes, push­ing Moru­ga/Table­land in­to a mar­gin­al des­ig­na­tion.

Of the 26,450 vot­ers, 20,433 turned out to cast their bal­lots.

In 2015, the mar­gin of votes was even small­er.

The UNC again nom­i­nat­ed De Coteau to rep­re­sent them but he could not keep the seat over the PNM’s Dr Lovell Fran­cis.

Fran­cis got 10,808 votes to De Coteau’s 10,275 votes–a dif­fer­ence of on­ly 533 votes. The In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty’s An­dre Clif­ford got 58 votes.

In that elec­tion, 21,141 of the 27,913 el­i­gi­ble vot­ers ex­er­cised their fran­chise.

For the Au­gust 10 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, the PNM has re­placed Fran­cis with Win­ston ‘Gyp­sy’ Pe­ters, a for­mer UNC MP and min­is­ter. Pe­ters had pre­vi­ous­ly been the UNC MP for Or­toire/Ma­yaro in 2000, 2001 and 2002. In 2007, a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of the for­mer Or­toire/Ma­yaro con­stituen­cy was re­moved to cre­ate the new Princes Town South/Table­land con­stituen­cy.

For this elec­tion, Pe­ters is con­test­ing Moru­ga/Table­land in­stead of Ma­yaro. He pre­vi­ous­ly rep­re­sent­ed the elec­torate in those 20 polling di­vi­sions that were pre­vi­ous­ly in the Ma­yaro con­stituen­cy be­tween 2000 and 2007.

The UNC has se­lect­ed coun­cil­lor in the Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, Michelle Ben­jamin, to rep­re­sent them. Thomas Sotil­lio is al­so run­ning as an in­de­pen­dent can­di­date and Steve Al­varez for the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Moru­ga/Table­land is bound­ed by the con­stituen­cies of Ma­yaro in the east, Princes Town and Na­pari­ma in the north, Siparia in the west and the Colum­bus Chan­nel to the south.

State of Moru­ga

Home to a vi­brant fish­ing trade, Moru­ga is al­so known for pro­duc­ing world-class co­coa beans.

Large parts of the con­stituen­cy are un­de­vel­oped lands–some forest­ed ar­eas and some from colo­nial es­tates. Oil and gas lines al­so snake through most of the con­stituen­cy.

But even more so, Moru­ga/Table­land is in­fa­mous for de­plorable roads and land­slides that of­ten take en­tire homes with them.

Dur­ing a re­cent vis­it to the com­mu­ni­ty, Guardian Me­dia was told un­em­ploy­ment is very high among the young peo­ple, as most strug­gle to get jobs in and out of the area. Those who man­age to find jobs are on­ly em­ployed for short pe­ri­ods.

A lack of wa­ter is an­oth­er ma­jor is­sue the con­stituents iden­ti­fied in the Table­land area. Guardian Me­dia spoke to about 20 peo­ple on their thoughts on the rep­re­sen­ta­tion they have re­ceived over the last five years. Their re­spons­es were not­ed anony­mous­ly, as many pre­ferred not to be iden­ti­fied.

Con­stituents were asked the fol­low­ing ques­tions and these are some of their re­spons­es:

1- Do you know who your Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment is for Moru­ga/Table­land?

All of the 15 peo­ple asked this ques­tion re­spond­ed “Yes.”

2- How of­ten do you see your Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment?

“Nev­er, plen­ty peo­ple tried to meet with him but nev­er got through.”

“I have nev­er seen him.”

“I met him a cou­ple of times.”

“You hard­ly see them in these ar­eas.”

“He al­ways around help­ing out peo­ple.”

“I saw him twice in five years.”

3- Are you sat­is­fied with the lev­el and qual­i­ty of ser­vice that you have re­ceived over the last five years from your Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment?

“Yes, but he could have done a lot more.”

“For Table­land, I am def­i­nite­ly dis­sat­is­fied with his rep­re­sen­ta­tion.”

“Yes, very much.”

“No, my main is­sue is crime and past and present gov­ern­ments have failed mis­er­ably on that front.”

“No, my con­cern is the in­fra­struc­ture and no­body is fix­ing that.”

“Yes, there is a bet­ter sta­di­um for the youths to play foot­ball, at least he did some­thing.”

“No, he could have done bet­ter than that.”

4- Do you know who are the peo­ple of­fer­ing them­selves as can­di­dates for the re­spec­tive par­ties, UNC, PNM, etc in your con­stituen­cy for this elec­tion?

All of the peo­ple asked this ques­tion said they knew who the re­spec­tive can­di­dates were.

5- Does race, par­ty loy­al­ty or pol­i­cy de­ter­mine how you vote?

“Pol­i­cy.”

“I stick with loy­al­ty to my par­ty.”

“Par­ty first.”

“Pol­i­cy–what can be done for the coun­try.”

“I am not vot­ing this year.”

“Par­ty. Since I know my­self, I am PNM.”

“I have nev­er vot­ed be­fore but this year I am cast­ing my vote for my par­ty.”

“I am go­ing with who I think can per­form, not for the par­ty.”

6- Do you be­lieve the state of the econ­o­my has im­proved un­der this Gov­ern­ment?

“Not at all.”

“No, but I think it will im­prove in the fu­ture with them.”

“No, they did the same thing as Kam­la (Per­sad-Bisses­sar.)”

“Yes, they did some good.”

“Not for me.”

“No, the econ­o­my has not im­proved since I was a child.”

7- Are you sat­is­fied with the Gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of crime in the coun­try?

“No.”

“Yes, they tried their best.”

“Not at all.”

“No, but you can’t blame them for crime.”

“Yes.”

“No­body can stop that, it can es­ca­late just so.”

8- Who is a bet­ter leader, Dr Kei­th Row­ley or Mrs Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar?

“Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, from the time she was in Gov­ern­ment com­pared to the PNM’s time, she did a lot more and the PNM did noth­ing, they have noth­ing to show.”

“Dr Kei­th Row­ley, he is a bet­ter leader.”

“Dr Row­ley, he is get­ting things done.”

“Nei­ther.”

“None, both of them are the same.”

“Row­ley has the edge.”

“Mrs Kam­la, Row­ley on­ly talks.”

“Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar, I am ready to bring back the UNC.”

“Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, she is the on­ly true leader.”

“I am go­ing back with Kam­la (Per­sad-Bisses­sar).”

Table­land–the for­got­ten com­mu­ni­ty

Fe­lix Le­gendre has lived in Table­land for all of his 65 years.

Le­gendre said over the years, Table­land has been plagued by two main is­sues–land­slides and a peren­ni­al wa­ter short­age.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Le­gendre said in re­cent times the wa­ter short­age has wors­ened.

“This area has not got any wa­ter for the past three weeks. In some parts, it’s for the last four weeks, it con­tin­u­ous­ly go­ing on like that and the on­ly way you are get­ting wa­ter is by the help of the rain, oth­er than that it’s no wa­ter,” Le­gendre said.

He said dur­ing the dry sea­son, Table­land res­i­dents are forced to go with­out wa­ter for two months in a stretch some­times.

“Just this morn­ing, one of the young guys saw the rain com­ing, he told me he was go­ing to try to catch some from the spout­ing, that is what we are liv­ing on in the back here. It is hard be­cause as you get up in the morn­ing, the first thing you look for is wa­ter to use your toi­let, to brush your teeth, and when you don’t have that, it’s very hard.”

An­oth­er on­go­ing prob­lem is land­slides.

The area is prone to shift­ing soil and the ef­fects can be seen on al­most every street. To dri­ve through Table­land means keep­ing an eye out for sud­den de­pres­sions in the road­way and ma­noeu­vring on main streets that are sud­den­ly re­duced from two lanes to one to nav­i­gate past land­slides.

Le­gendre be­lieves the Table­land part of the Moru­ga/Table­land con­stituen­cy has suf­fered over the last five years un­der out­go­ing MP, Fran­cis.

“We have been very much ne­glect­ed as part of the con­stituen­cy, re­cent­ly I took some youths to play a crick­et match in Marac (Moru­ga) and the roads there, from the time I know it to now is the best, but the road up here re­al poor. In the re­cent past, noth­ing has de­vel­oped in the Table­land part of the con­stituen­cy.”

He said roads that were paved from 2010 to 2015 were left to de­te­ri­o­rate over the last five years.

“Here comes as if it is not a part of Moru­ga/Table­land and mind you, it’s a ma­jor area, all we ask is that please, please, some­one as­sist the area in get­ting roads fixed and wa­ter in the lines. It is like we are the for­got­ten part of the con­stituen­cy. Please do some­thing for us, you can’t just leave us here like the lone sheep.”

Ben­jamin: Big plans for con­stituents

UNC can­di­date Michelle Ben­jamin has big plans for Moru­ga/Table­land if she is se­lect­ed as the next MP.

Cur­rent­ly a sit­ting Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion coun­cil­lor, Ben­jamin hopes to de­feat the PNM’s Win­ston ‘Gyp­sy’ Pe­ters.

Guardian Me­dia spoke to Ben­jamin last week while on the cam­paign trail about her plans to ad­dress the three ma­jor com­plaints of con­stituents: poor in­fra­struc­ture, un­em­ploy­ment and wa­ter short­ages.

Ben­jamin said if elect­ed, she plans to lob­by for a ma­jor in­fra­struc­ture over­haul in Moru­ga/Table­land which she hopes will al­so cre­ate jobs for skilled and un­skilled youth in the com­mu­ni­ty.

“For far too long we as con­stituents, be­cause I live here un­like my op­po­nent, we have been promised that roads would be fixed and land­slips fixed so as the MP, I would be lob­by­ing to have the in­fra­struc­ture fixed,” she said.

Ben­jamin be­lieves the youth un­em­ploy­ment rate in the area is about 95 per cent. She said young peo­ple feel ne­glect­ed be­cause when­ev­er ma­jor projects are start­ed in the con­stituen­cy, they are not em­ployed as part of the work­force.

“We are go­ing to man­date large con­trac­tors to sub­con­tract work­ers from the con­stituen­cy so the con­stituents will be part and par­cel of the de­vel­op­ment. The UNC gov­ern­ment would al­so cre­ate jobs for con­stituents who have their de­grees and want to ven­ture out of Moru­ga/Table­land for em­ploy­ment.”

She al­so hopes to lob­by the Wa­ter and Sewage Au­thor­i­ty to re­place cor­rod­ed mains in the con­stituen­cy and in­stall new lines in ar­eas that have nev­er had a pipe-borne sup­ply.

“I am a sit­ting coun­cil­lor and I can tell you there are ar­eas where we al­ways have to pro­vide a truck-borne sup­ply. Whether it’s prob­lems to get wa­ter in the lines or they do not have wa­ter lines at all, in 2020 wa­ter should not be an is­sue on the ta­ble,” Ben­jamin said.

Gyp­sy: Agro plant brings new hope

It was a rainy Fri­day af­ter­noon when Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Table­land but that didn’t stop Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment can­di­date for Moru­ga/Table­land Win­ston ‘Gyp­sy’ Pe­ters from go­ing door-to-door seek­ing sup­port in the Au­gust 10 polls.

In ad­di­tion to what he’s heard from res­i­dents, Pe­ters was told of the three main is­sues raised by po­ten­tial con­stituents; poor road in­fra­struc­ture, a lack of prop­er wa­ter sup­ply and high un­em­ploy­ment.

“The on­ly thing that could ad­dress that is mon­ey,” Pe­ters re­spond­ed.

He ex­plained that that side of the coun­try would al­ways have land­slips be­cause of its topog­ra­phy.

“So we for­ev­er have to be fix­ing these things, I don’t know how else to ad­dress it.”

About the cries of job­less­ness, Pe­ters said this could be ad­dressed by try­ing to cre­ate mean­ing­ful jobs for the peo­ple. He point­ed to an agro-pro­cess­ing cen­tre which was opened close to two weeks ago.

“So that will ad­dress some of the agri­cul­ture prob­lems, it’s go­ing to ad­dress some of the peo­ple get­ting jobs down here.”

The third area of great con­cern was wa­ter. To this, Pe­ters said, “Well, the wa­ter sit­u­a­tion would have to be ad­dressed by Pub­lic Util­i­ties.”

He said one of the prob­lems fac­ing the coun­try was that the same wa­ter source we had when he was a child is the same wa­ter source be­ing used now.

“I don’t know if I would be the Min­is­ter of Works, it would de­pend on where I am.

“I would have to ad­dress it by mak­ing sure we speak to the rel­e­vant peo­ple to get it done for them.”

For Moru­ga/Table­land, Pe­ters en­vi­sions a re­sus­ci­ta­tion of pineap­ple and co­coa farm­ing.

“Are we go­ing to pay more at­ten­tion to agri­cul­ture? Yes. And that could help us with some of our prob­lems,” he said.

Elec­tion good­ies for Moru­ga/Table­land

On June 6–A long-await­ed com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre was opened in La Lune, Moru­ga. PNM can­di­date Win­ston ‘Gyp­sy’ Pe­ters, out­go­ing MP Dr Lovell Fran­cis and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly at­tend­ed the of­fi­cial open­ing. In Sep­tem­ber 2017, Moru­ga res­i­dents protest­ed, call­ing on Fran­cis to en­sure the cen­tre was built. He re­spond­ed to their protest and a plac­ard that had been placed in front of his home with a mes­sage on his Face­book page that read, “Thanks, I’m aware and work­ing on it. Have a great evening.” 

On Ju­ly 14–Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley opened the coun­try’s first Agro-Pro­cess­ing and Light In­dus­tri­al Park in Moru­ga. The fa­cil­i­ty cost $90 mil­lion and the Prime Min­is­ter boast­ed it would gen­er­ate thou­sands of jobs, in­crease the coun­try’s food sup­ply and strength­en its food se­cu­ri­ty.

Ju­ly 21–The Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion, un­der the purview of the Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­istry, pro­vid­ed elec­tric­i­ty sup­ply to 30 home­own­ers at the for­mer Merikin lands in Moru­ga. The process was com­plet­ed un­der the Min­istry’s Elec­tri­fi­ca­tion Pro­gramme, where low-in­come house­holds are wired, in­spect­ed and me­tered for con­nec­tion to the T&TEC sup­ply. Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds at­tend­ed the of­fi­cial cer­e­mo­ny.