CHARLES KONG SOO
After several complaints from citizens and pedestrians of a foul smell and raw sewerage emanating from a locked-up property that were posing serious public health risks in the heart of the city, the Port-of-Spain Corporation moved in on the premises of the errant land owner at 78-80 Frederick Street, with two sewage cleaning trucks, public health inspectors, and a work crew yesterday.
Chief Public Health Inspector at the corporation Mitra Sooklal said the pungent smell and effluence were going on for about two weeks and the corporation was unable to contact the owner.
Speaking to the Sunday Guardian yesterday, Ag Mayor Hillan Morean said “The corporation is tasked with treating with public health hazards and challenges in the city. What we would have recognised was that there are several properties that are abandoned or in a very ruinous state that create public health challenges for people in the city. As such we've embarked on a campaign to address some of these properties, as many as possible.
“We've published the names of these errant land owners in the newspapers and we've started to see some responses.”
He said for some time now they had been trying to get the owner to address the problems there.
Morean said even though they were served notices on at least two occasions from public health officers, the owner had done absolutely nothing.
Morean said the property owner will be billed for the clean up as they had to recoup costs because public funds were utilised in the exercise.