Chairman of the Penal Debe Regional Corporation is praising the flood mitigation exercise by the Ministry of Rural Development and Local Government, for the low number of flooding incidents in his district over the last few days.
Speaking to reporters at the site of a blown off roof in Golconda on Thursday, chairman Gowtam Maharaj says collaborative work between three ministries has led to a clearing of clogged watercourses that the region has not seen in many years.
Reporter Cindy Raghubar-Teekersingh tells us more.
00:00Days of persistent rainfall and minor to no flooding across frequently affected areas in Pinal, Debe, Barakpur and Woodland.
00:10Chairman of the Pinal Debe Regional Corporation, Gauta Maharaj, believes it's all due to the work put in by local government minister Khadija Amin
00:18and the directive of the prime minister, Kamla Passant-Bissessa.
00:22The proof is in the pudding. We did a significant amount of cleaning through the flood mitigation effort launched by the minister of local government
00:31and guided by the Honorable Prime Minister and definitely the fruits are there.
00:35We have been asking for the large excavator for quite a while. Now it's a reality.
00:40We have the large excavator of the ministry of local government. It is doing significant work.
00:45Chairman Maharaj says collaboration was key to getting the work done.
00:49Where the ministry of works and the ministry of agriculture is engaged with us.
00:54So when we complete up to our outfall, that is the regional corporation's outfall, which is the drains,
01:00they get into a river and then into a larger river. And that is exactly where the sticking point was.
01:06If we clean our drains, then it still goes into a plugged area.
01:10And now with the collaborative effort, it means that we are cleaning comprehensively end to end.
01:14So that line of sight approach is definitely bringing results.
01:17He says while extensive water course cleaning accounted for minimal flood impact this time around,
01:24they will be working on measures to fix larger underlying issues to mitigate flooding in the long term.
01:31The plan will be to continue the drain cleaning.
01:34We are aware that the river channel and drain cleaning alone will not do it.
01:37Of course, we'll be working with the various ministries to have the deeper engineering type input
01:42in areas such as the floodgate management, the strange phenomenon of the elevated riverbed in the woodland area,
01:50the river embankment strengthening.
01:52Woodland is an area that usually gets flooded last when water from other areas makes it way further downstream.
02:00When we visited on Friday, woodland residents weren't convinced the ministry's work would be enough to spare them.
02:08I'm not surprised right now, but we are expecting it.
02:10Most of us are on full-on panic mode because the rains has not let up for the past couple of days.
02:17So this usually means that we will be getting the flood.
02:21It's not an if, not a but. It's going to happen.
02:24The preparations we are making is to just raise our belongings higher in the house.
02:29People are going to the highway, getting blocks.
02:31I myself went and got some concrete blocks this morning and just tried to lift everything out of the reach of the water.
02:36But we don't know how high the water is going to come.
02:38Speaking to TV6 News, President of the South Oropoot Riverine Flood Action Group, Edward Moody,
02:45says the area needs more than the temporary fixes being carried out by the ministry.
02:51The issue is how do we get the water from the river, the main water courses, into the Gulf of Paria.
02:57If we should solve that problem, everything else would fall in place.
03:02Yes, it has shown a positive impact in terms of the water flow out of some of these communities.
03:07However, I will go back to the real issue.
03:10It has to do with the main water courses and work has not started with the Ministry of Works as yet to deal with these main water courses.
03:18You could clean how many small water courses you want.
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