Shas­tri Boodan

Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Works, Richie Sookhai, and PNM's can­di­date for Ch­agua­nas East has hit the ground in the mar­gin­al con­stituen­cy hop­ing to drum up sup­port in a re­gion the PNM has strug­gled to win in sev­er­al elec­tions. 

He spoke to Guardian Me­dia on Mon­day dur­ing a walk­a­bout in En­ter­prise. He said poor roads and in­ad­e­quate drainage were the main com­plaints he heard from res­i­dents.

The PNM Sen­a­tor called for re­gion­al roads and drainage di­vi­sions to ad­dress in­fra­struc­ture is­sues across Trinidad and To­ba­go. Sookhai, 

Sookhai said, "Each re­gion should have a drainage and road di­vi­sion fo­cus­ing on de­vel­op­ing these 'or­phan' roads and drains that keep ap­pear­ing over time. You need a plan; you can't just keep build­ing box drains with­out prop­er spec­i­fi­ca­tions, ex­pect­ing that to solve the prob­lem. That ap­proach on­ly pass­es the buck down the road."

Sookhai ex­plained that cer­tain in­fra­struc­ture is­sues could be ad­dressed by the Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion. How­ev­er, he ob­served that res­i­dents were on­ly re­ceiv­ing piece­meal de­vel­op­ment around elec­tion time. He crit­i­cised op­po­si­tion politi­cians, say­ing, "They are not se­ri­ous about rais­ing the peo­ple’s is­sues but are in­stead pro­mot­ing them­selves.

There are com­mu­ni­ties in need of prop­er drainage, which should be ad­dressed through lo­cal gov­ern­ment. It’s more than build­ing one or two me­tres of box drains that re­main in­com­plete for years."

In the 2020 elec­tion, the PNM field­ed then Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Clarence Ramb­harat an­nounc­ing him as one of the first names screened that cy­cle. Ramb­harat lost to for­mer Ch­agua­nas May­or Van­dana Mo­hit, the sit­ting UNC MP.