00:00It's been decades of distress, say Arangwe's farmers.
00:30This is what the floodgate looked like hours before our cameras arrived.
00:46As Pundit Satyanan Maharaj, head of the Arangwe's United Farmers Association, puts it,
00:52the reins have been weaponized against the citizens of Arangwe's because of their voting patterns over the many years by the PNM.
01:01He tells us the reluctance to help farmers was politically motivated.
01:06Farmer Dolalchan explains the short fate of the three pumps installed by the previous Kamala-Passad-Bissessa regime.
01:14This pump under me was neglected under the Ministry of Works.
01:18The third and newest pump, he says, lasted no longer than one and a half years because the area was not maintained.
01:48There is a more updated version of pump. However, that pump mash up.
01:54All the oil spitting out from that pump due to one thing, giving a complaint to the Ministry of Works over and over
02:01that the road cave down inside of there and clog up the whole system, causing pressure on the pump and damaging the pump.
02:09And them is million dollars pump.
02:10A temporary mobile pump was brought and moved in short order.
02:14The last place I see that, I see that by the Grand Baza, to make sure that the Grand Baza ain't get floured out.
02:20But what was farming like when the pumps did work?
02:24The few times it worked, it didn't make the whole Arangwe's get floured out.
02:29Some places down here get floured out. I get floured out too.
02:33But how nothing is working now? The whole entire place, which is over the highway in Arangwe's district area,
02:39all these people get floured out. So if you walk in the edge of the highway and you watch that is where you see,
02:44all them get out and they drown out. Because here is the base where we need the water to come up from the rice land
02:51with enough pumps to go into the Karnwe River. What's the problem we have now?
02:57We have the Karnwe River coming inside of here.
02:59There has been no maintenance of equipment. The farmers say the area too is overgrown with lilies
03:06and not desilted in close to a decade. We learn that no drainage workers are here to man the gates.
03:15The government put in a $3 million dam there and it works automatically.
03:22When any wood goes inside of here and sticks, it cannot close off.
03:25So as the farmers have to risk their life to go down on Saturday to try to clean it all
03:30because the ministry don't have no money and the ministry aren't employing nobody here.
03:35Today you come down here, today is the Monday miss. You seen any workers here?
03:40No, we farmers here. It are no workers here.
03:45That work could have worked since Friday, no workers here to operate these damper.
03:49In the meantime, the farmers say they've withstood millions of dollars in losses.
03:54Well miss, I hang on a string right now praying for this river to go down because I have 100
03:59other chickens inside of here. I could speak on behalf of some of these farmers and them
04:04thousands of dollars that are made with water mill and it have farmers with bike and it have a lot
04:09of farmers. They operate the gates themselves and undertake what works they can.
04:15Now this is the height of the water that's been flowing over here. Over these years.
04:19Now all these things built here, this is for my building. So I spend my money here to build all this
04:25and why? Because at times we had the whole entire river flowing over here.
04:31Works and Infrastructure Minister Jolene John, when contacted, said she spent most of her morning
04:37speaking with St. Joseph MP Davish Maharaj, who sent her a list of items for urgent attention.
04:43Of the five items, four were either completed or underway. Minister John says, quote,
04:49I am meeting with the technical team tomorrow. Then we will arrange a meeting on site with the
04:55farmers by Thursday to ensure the resolution is complete and satisfactory, end quote.
05:01Ravishutawari Rupnarain, TV6 News.
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