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Just a matter of facts

Oct 27, 2010 Letters

Dear Editor,
While countries like Guyana continue to be affected by climate change, writers like Mr. Charles Sohan, as part of an ongoing campaign, continue to undermine efforts by the government in mitigating climate related activities.
In 2005, Guyana experienced gripping effects of climate change and further emphasized the need for government to continue making investments to improve and enhance its drainage infrastructure.
During the 2004/2005 floods, the intensity and magnitude of rainfall experienced was far above normal levels resulting in higher water levels hence the effect of flooding since the drainage infrastructure was only designed to take off 1.5 inches of water over a 24-hour period.
It was clearly not the lack of maintenance or management as is claimed by Mr. Sohan but rather excessive rainfall over a prolonged period.
In addition, to ensure there was no re-occurrence of the 2004/2005 floods, Government continued making necessary financing available.
One cannot ignore the fact that at present the drainage infrastructure is better equipped to deal with high intensity rainfall. Much more equipment and resources has been provided to the NDIA and the drainage infrastructure has also been upgrade.
I am of the firm belief that a significant amount of work has been undertaken at the East Demerara Water Conservancy which has increased its capacity.
The question now needs to be asked, “If improvements were made to the EDWC in a haphazard manner as is claimed by Mr. Sohan, how then in 2008/2009 when similar magnitude and intensity of rainfall was experienced there was no disastrous outcome? Is it not because of significant enhancement in the EDWC?
Mr. Sohan also questions the much anticipated Northern Relief channel at Hope/Dochfour which would significantly enhance the drainage capacity of the EDWC.
With an additional drainage channel in place, the Mahaica, Mahaicony, Abary and East Coast Demerara communities would benefit from enhanced drainage. It is no secret that when the conservancy reaches alarming levels farmers and residents from the MMA areas are affected since water has to be released in order to secure the integrity of the conservancy dam.
These comments are not surprising as Mr. Sohan  has made numerous negative comments with regard to this project.
With regard to the awarding of a contract under the Conservancy Adaptation Project (CAP), it is common knowledge that this project is ongoing since the World Bank approved US$3.8M.
A number of projects have already been undertaken and very shortly signing will commence to undertake a complex and sophisticated study of the EDWC.
Studies of this nature can only be carried out by a few companies in the world. In addition, if Mr. Sohan had done his research he would have found out that the lone bidder went 100 per cent above the estimated cost of the project which led to re-tendering and hence the delay.
Given the following information, one cannot help but wonder whether the comments by Mr. Sohan are politically motivated or made for personal gain since in the last letter from the NDIA, it merely spelt out the inaccuracies in comments made by Mr. Veecock. What were provided to the public were purely facts not fiction as is claimed by Mr. Sohan!
Christopher Mc Phoy
Resident Region Four

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