Flood Mitigation works continue and Local Government Minister Khadijah Ameen is telling her corporation heads to make use of the down time now before the hurricane season starts.
00:00Local Government Minister Khadija Amin continues her visits throughout the country ahead of the rainy and hurricane season.
00:08Today I have continued my visits. As you know, the Ministry of Local Government launched a flood mitigation program that engages all 14 regional corporations in Trinidad.
00:18In addition to that, the Ministry of Works also has an intense program for clearing water courses as well as the Ministry of Agriculture.
00:29And because of that multi-ministry approach, we have been successful in reducing flooding in some of the areas.
00:36She was able to make some observations.
00:39Some of these water courses in the past, they were cleared where the eye could see.
00:44And when you go down in the garden, when you go with the farmers to see the areas there, you will see the level of neglect, the amount of erosion.
00:53You see trees growing in the water course.
00:55So it tells you that those water courses have been neglected for some time.
01:00Amin saw that some corporations after the yellow level alert slowed down their response.
01:06After the first 48 hours where we were in a yellow alert, we had excellent response from our regional corporations.
01:14And I don't want us to relax because the rain is up.
01:17But she tells them to make use of the additional resources being allocated to the 14 corporations on a rotational basis.
01:43So I say to every corporation, every councillor, whether you are UNC, PNM, Idaho business, I want you to get on the ground there and make use of this flood mitigation program.
01:53In the medium and long term, she urges local government representatives to think outside the box as the government prepares projects for the mid-term budget in June.
02:03Because money doesn't only have to come from government.
02:07It could also come from international funding because some of these projects are green projects.
02:12Some of these projects are in keeping with SDG goals and environmentally sustainable solutions.
02:18So there is international funding available.
02:20And this is why I'm employing all corporations.
02:23Be innovative.
02:25Don't stick to just road and garbage collection.
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