PoS is a wine and jam dump

One letter writer to Newsday called the capital city a “...wine and jam dump”.

In the letter published yesterday, Gillian George spoke about her visit to Port-of-Spain on a Friday.

“The streets were dirty with Charlotte Street being the nastiest of them all. Garbage, crates, boxes, illegal sellers everywhere,” she wrote.

However, George was not only upset about the unsanitary conditions but the noise pollution and music piracy as well.

“Music so loud that I couldn’t even hear the police siren coming down the street,” George said, adding that the songs she heard were promoting the use of illegal drugs, among them marijuana.

George claimed that the mayor of the capital, Port-of-Spain, Murchison Brown had little power to clean up the city because of political interference.

Yesterday, Brown, in response to the Newsday reader’s concerns, assured that his office is free from political influence. “Let me make it absolutely clear that as mayor I am under no pressure with respect to doing my job,” Brown said.

Brown said he has the full support of his superiors who never question his ability to keep Port-of-Spain clean.

Pressed about a gully-sucker bought last year to flush out the city’s drains, Brown would not comment.

Brown said it is the public and businessowners who must accept responsiibility for the overflow of garbage in Port-of-Spain.

Brown defended the Port-of-Spain City Corporation saying that efforts are being made to get vagrants off the streets and garbage disposal will be improved.

The corporation, he said, will continue to work closely with government ministries, such as Social Development, to curb the incidents of littering and vagrancy.

He reiterated that citizens also have a part to play in keeping the city clean. (See page 12)