Latest update December 23rd, 2024 3:40 AM
Ramotar commissions $37M drainage pump at Rose Hall Town
By Leon Suseran
Flooding in Rose Hall Town and nearby areas along Port Mourant on the Corentyne is expected to be a thing of the past as a $37M pump station was commissioned yesterday by President Donald Ramotar. He was accompanied by Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy; CEO of the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA), Lionel Wordsworth; Region Six Chairman, David Armogan; and Interim Management Committee (IMC) Chairman of Rose Hall Town, Bevon Sinclair.
The Rose Hall Town Pump Station in operation yesterday.
The old structure was decommissioned in the 1970’s and since then there has been no pump in the area. Wordsworth, giving an overview of the project, stated that many other drainage facilities around Guyana would have suffered similar fates. A number of sluices have also been rebuilt and old ones re- commissioned, such as the one at Alness, Corentyne.
In February 2013, a contract for the resuscitation of the pump at Rose Hall Town was awarded to Harrichand Toolsie General Engineering and Supply Services. It was completed in June of last year, works of which consisted of rebuilding the old pump house, “removing the old pump…and installing a new pump which has a discharge capacity of 120 Cubic Feet per second.”
The hydro-flow pump, one of 14, was acquired under the Indian Line of Credit Contract. Along with the pump at Rose Hall Town, similar projects have been completed in Canje and at Number 66. “Pumps will also be completed at Number 43, Eversham and Gangaram, similarly in other regions, we have other projects ongoing,” Wordsworth explained.
Region Six Chairman Armogan praised the drainage capacity of the pump.
“In four to six hours, it can pull all of the water out of the Rose Hall Town area, and it also helps to pull all the water out of areas drained through the Rose Hall system, so it is a tremendous boost,” Armogan said.
Armogan said that “Even though we are currently in a sort of El Nino period, should the rains come very heavy, the water will go off the land in a day or two because of the capacity of the pump to push the water out. So this will bring a lot of relief and help to the people of this area.”
Minister Ramsammy noted that the weather patterns demand the use of these pumps “and it has become the major task of the government to remedy the situation.” Now that the drainage and irrigation facility has been boosted, Ramsammy stated that hundreds of acres of rice farming that came to an end many years ago can now be brought back.
Other pump stations, he noted, are being put in place.
At Number 43 and Adventure, Corentyne, the capacities of those structures are being improved. Armogan said that at Bengal, Corentyne, for the first time, pumping facility is being installed, while at Number 19 and Number 66, “we are installing pump stations.”
At Gangaram, Canje a new pump station is currently under construction while a new pump is being installed.
“Are these pumps going to solve our problems entirely? The answer is ‘no’—— we still have to relate it to the amount of rain we have.”
People, too, have a responsibility, Armogan urged, as he spoke out against the stealing of the fuel.
President Ramotar, in delivering the Feature Address, urged the residents and community leaders to care the facility. He said that the facility will ease many difficulties which were formerly faced by farmers in the front and back lands in Rose Hall Town. He then talked about the Opposition Budget Cuts and their disapproval and skepticism of the Amaila Hydro-Power project as well as the non-passage of the Anti- Money Laundering Bill.
The president then cut the ribbon leading into the facility; unveiled a plaque; switched on the pump and viewed a demonstration as it became operable.
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