Incompetence of City Hall highlighted once again

Jan 29, 2017 Letters

Dear Editor,
Every Guyanese from the youngest child has been taught in school that Guyana has two rainy seasons, one during the Christmas period and early in the year and in the other in the May/June period. In fact who had forgotten that lesson, learnt the hard way in December 2005 when the rainy season really made its presence felt. How could the members of the Georgetown City Council forget this episode, which we now call the ‘Great Flood’ or are they just blissfully waiting for another one. From all appearances that is exactly what they are doing.
Fast forward to last December the day before Christmas Eve, the heavens opened and rain poured ‘cats and dogs’, while at the same time the Council claimed that there was a high tide. Despite all that has gone on before, and in spite of the advanced technology available to us in weather forecasting, the Council like 2005, again seemed to have been taken by surprise. Persons in their well decorated homes for the Christmas were forced to pick up and dry out their carpets, rugs, linoleum and furniture from the lower flats, while many businesses lost millions of dollars in stocks that were stored on the ground in their stores or stalls in the municipal markets but Council bore no liability.
In some places like Bel Air Park and South Ruimveldt water took days to drain off, so some persons spent Christmas Day and beyond wading through their lower flats. What was most disappointing however was that the Georgetown City Council claimed they spent nearly eight hundred million dollars of our tax dollars cleaning up, however for just a few millions more, several of the pumps and sluices were left in a state of disrepair. Such ineptitude in a city government should never be tolerated by the citizenry or central government.
Georgetown has a system of interconnected canals and sluices that, if maintained and utilized properly, there would hardly be flooding, and thus the absolute necessity for the Council’s engineering and drainage staff to ensure that these structures are maintained, modernized and rebuilt when necessary.
However, instead, they have left pumps to lie inactive for want of spare parts and repairs, allowed squatters to take over the reserves next to the drains preventing effective maintenance of those drains, and have actually filled some of those drains and canals whilst in other cases they have just allowed some sluices to become totally abandoned.
It should be noted that everyone suffers from the incompetence of a few at City Hall particularly those who live in bottom-flats and who in many instances fall ill from the stagnant dirty water.
And as usual City Hall sings the same tune that the cow died on, and that is that sluices cannot be opened when there is high tide, but they are not talking about or taking action against the errant officers whose neglect caused two pumps to be inoperable.
While we are willing to concede that our low lying Georgetown will flood given its geographic situation, the fact is that the flooding should not and will not be so dire, if the systems that they inherited from the Dutch are allowed to work the way they were designed to. But of course systems cannot work themselves, rather they have to be operated by people, that are the engineering and drainage staff of the Georgetown City Council. Why are we paying them if they don’t constantly clear and desilt the drains and canals when there is dry weather and if they don’t check and maintain the pumps. When these municipal officers are found to be in dereliction of duty in these crucial areas they should be dealt with condignly, but rather it seems they are given a pat on the back.
Deodarie Putulall

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