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Guyana still awaits Venezuela’s river dredging offer

May 16, 2008 News

Guyana is still ‘waiting’ and ‘hoping’ that the Venezuelan Government would deliver on its offer to assist with the dredging of the Mahaicony, Mahaica and Abary Creeks, Minister of Agriculture, Robert Persaud, said yesterday.
The Minister was at the time discussing drainage and irrigations plans for the current rainy season with Mahaica and Mahaicony farmers at Fairfield Community Centre, Mahaicony.
At the meeting, concerns were raised by farmers about the silting up of the Mahaicony River prompting the Minister to acknowledge that this is indeed a problem.
According to the Minister, it is not that anyone is blind or ignoring that the river is indeed silted up, but the cost and division of technical people on the issue has led to some indecision.
“There has always been concern about the discharge and the siltation, which is affecting the Mahaicony, Mahaica and Abary Creeks. If you look at it from an aerial stand point, you will see some amount of heavy siltation. We have recognised that the dredging needs to be done,” the Minister told the farmers.
The Venezuelan Government, he added, had volunteered its assistance.
“They came here and they spent six weeks. They did the hydrographic survey and brought in their equipment.”
Minister Persaud stated that after the survey was conducted on the three rivers, Government was told that the project would cost US$5M.
Since then, he noted, Guyana is still awaiting word from the Venezuelans.
“That fact is we cannot afford US$5M to clean these three creeks at this point in time because the reality is unless we also have the capacity to maintain it too within a couple weeks, with what’s taking place, it may all go back to the same state,” Persaud said.
He said that there is still some amount of doubt by the local technical personnel about whether the dredging of these rivers will at all be a beneficial move.
“But if the Venezuelans come through and say ‘yes’ they are going to do it then we are going to work with them and also seek to put a component in place whereby we can maintain.”
Guyana is also ‘hoping’, the Minister said, to get ‘the source document, the findings and the technical work’ that the Venezuelans had done.
“If we are able to engage any other party…we will have no technical work because there was considerable amount of investments to do those technical works in terms of equipment and expertise, which we do not necessarily possess right now.”
On September 21, 2007 during a courtesy call on Minister Persaud, Venezuelan Ambassador to Guyana, Dario Morandy, announced that his country had completed the technical report for Guyana as it relates to the dredging of the Mahaica, Mahaicony, Abary and Pomeroon Rivers.
The ambassador had said that consultations were underway to establish a timeline for the commencement of the dredging that will be done and funded by Venezuela.
Following the 2005/2006 floods, the Venezuelan Government responded to Guyana’s appeal for help.
Venezuela promptly sent a team to conduct the necessary hydrographic surveys needed before any dredging could have started. (Tusika Martin)

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