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Luncheon “unsure”whether Surendra pumps are in Guyana
Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon has disclosed that he is unsure about whether government has received the 14 pumps from Surendra Engineering, let alone its location in the city.
This he declared yesterday at a press conference held at the Office of the President.
Dr. Roger Luncheon
In light of the recent flooding, Dr. Luncheon explained that Cabinet met on Monday last and the issue was discussed.
He told members of the media corps that there was a recorded 84 millimeters of rainfall over the past few days.
“Another round of flooding induced despair among city residents and dwellers. The extreme weather patterns are now unavoidable. This is part of the reality of climate change. .the City Hall and drainage is not a problem that is unknown to us, and we have the more recent example of the multi stakeholders’ intervention in the December 2013 rains that similarly affected the city. In cabinet’s discussion, interventions along these lines pointed to an appropriate direction on the way forward,” the Cabinet Secretary explained.
He added, “Cabinet feels that the situation now calls for more aggressive thinking on the part of stakeholders from the start…also innovative thinking; thinking that brought us the Hope drainage canal. There is a need for a study and for proposed solutions to the defects that are constantly being trumpeted and uncovered in the current drainage of the city. The financing mechanisms and implementation on work planned would be weighty matters and would need mature considerations by all stakeholders. Cabinet’s contention, putting everything aside, is that the time is now.”
After his presentation, Dr. Luncheon was then asked about the 14 pumps from Surendra Engineering which were procured for a reported US$4M.
In previous reports with the Secretary; some of those pumps were expected to be in Guyana in December of last year.
However, before he could even pronounce further on the location of the pumps in the country, he firmly asserted that he could not say whether the pumps have indeed been received as yet.
In addition to this, Luncheon in an added comment said, “Even if we did all the work, it would not have averted what happened to citizens in Georgetown, hence my stress on innovative thinking. Even if we were to clean all the canals running east to west, we would have to remove those squatters from those areas and that entails removing 40 years of debris… And we would not see so much flooding. It would be reduced. But such a project requires lots of money.”
Nevertheless, Luncheon later stressed that, “We just have to put someone that can think of flood control.”
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