Detailing a waste of taxpayers’ dollars

Feb 23, 2012 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Certain things are more self evident than others, since we can see some of them clearly but  there are also those which we cannot see e.g. expensive contracts to do work below water for example at Nos 1&2 canals polder and the East Demerara Water Conservancy [EDWC],
For example, in the February 20 edition of Kaieteur News on page 18 is a story captioned “bridge built  a month ago collapses”. The story tells us that a heavy duty bridge built in Region Six, according to Mr. Hazrat Hussein of the Region Six RDC, collapsed within a month of being built. He blames the central Government, the regional administration and the contractor for the substandard work leading to the collapse, specifically blaming lack of supervision by regional engineers;, work not done to specifications and substandard materials by the contractor.
Mr. Hussein in the KN report also alleges that millions of dollars are spent on projects within his region with little or no supervision by the region and central government which he alleges just do not seem to care. He cites as an example the multi-million-dollar revetment at Lonsdale which collapsed shortly after being built by theResat construction firm on West Bank Demerara.
The public must also be aware of other disastrous failures over the past few months or years, of bridges, roads, and wharves which have collapsed within weeks or months of being constructed.
In the Stabroek News of Monday February 20, 2012 is a letter from Dr. Ramsammy now Minister of Agriculture in which he condemns what amounts to public mischief by the Stabroek News since the newspaper published two articles and an editorial between February 13 and February 14. 2012, relating to the Hope[less] canal and the EDWC.
In his letter, Ramsammy regurgitates a litany of expensive works which have been done since 2005 to protect the East Coast Demerara residents from the EDWC but he conveniently forgets to mention the $400 million which was paid to BK International to build up the EDWC dam. This dam subsequently led to its complete failure which was the genesis of this problem at the EDWC that his government refuses to take the blame for and have spent billions of our taxes trying to fix. The findings of the commission into the failure of the EDWC dam after BK completed itsr “WORKS” is there as evidence as to the reasons and the consequences of the failure of the EDWC dam after BK International “WORKED” on it.
The point I am making is that what we can actually see is falling apart before our very eyes, what therefore is the situation with those projects which are not visible since most of the works referred to by Ramsammy were done below the level of the water.
In addition, as if circumstances have conspired against him, the masterpiece of diatribe written by Ramsammy details at some length some of the expensive projects which were initiated to relieve the water level of the conservancy during high rainfall including “the rehabilitation of the Cunha relief canal, and the construction of a revetment at Cunha which were done” among other things.
Paradoxically, in the same issue of the Stabroek News of Monday February 20, on the front page we see that and I quote it “rehabilitation of Cunha canal to be funded through Guyana’s forest partnership with Norway”
In reading the article, the Stabroek News is reporting that the project will cost US$1.91 million and only then will the Cunha be able to increase the real time drainage capacity of the conservancy by 30 per cent.
After all of the money we spent in this country since 2005, after all of the damage our poor farmers in Mahaica and Mahaicony suffered since then, we are only now being told that if the Government gets US$1.9 million from the Norway funds then the water conservancy’s capacity to relieve the high levels of water flooding the East Coast will be improved by 30 per cent through Cunha alone!
Words defy a description of such a situation. Especially as it relates to the $3 billion Hope[less] Canal.
But we must be reassured that having spent billions of our tax dollars doing the work identified in Dr Ramsammy’s letter in the Stabroek News , it must have been Dr.Roopnaraine’s and my imagination which showed us the farmers in the 1500 acre area we visited in Mahaica, fighting a losing battle by attempting to pump the high water level of the Mahaica River out of their rice fields.
Since 2005 the government officials just keep telling us how much of our taxes they have wasted on this and that project, since obviously what they have done with all of that money has not worked since the flooding continues.
Anthony Vieira

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