Charity underwater after heavy rains

Apr 15, 2018 News

As heavy downpours continue to pound Charity over the past two days, residents along with multiple businesses were all affected by flood waters.
Kaieteur News understands that multiple businesses were forced to close last Friday, since their ground floors were submerged in high volumes of water. This community which is located some 45 miles north west on the Essequibo Coast, is one of the heaviest commercialized in Region Two.
Nevertheless, Charity and its approximate 6000 residents, are all exposed to flooding since the community’s drainage system is in a complete disarray. The Charity drainage network has not been desilted for the past 25 years.
Efforts to have the community’s drainage system desilted have also been a challenge, as was explained by a councillor of the Charity/Urasara NDC.
The councillor noted that vendors for the past 25 years, have been illegally vending over integral drainage trenches.
This practice, he added, made it difficult for the trenches to be desilted, since the area has become inaccessible for excavators. It is believed that during the heavy rainfalls last Friday, the silted up Charity koker was incapable of draining the community.
This again was due to the fact that, the area surrounding the koker, is also occupied by illegal vendors who make it impossible for the koker to be desilted.
“During the flood here in Charity, the Pomeroon River was low, so water could’ve easily been drained.
The issue was that the koker was incapable of draining the community due to its silted nature,” explained the councilor.
The councillor further explained, “Desilting is always a challenge because these vendors would not move. But the entire issue starts at the NDC level…When the council sits and make decisions for persons to move, from over these drainage trench, these decisions are not carried out by the staff and members of the NDC.”
Concerns of alleged malpractices within the Charity NDC, was also raised earlier this month at the of the Regional Democratic Council statutory meeting.
This was later confirmed by a NDC councillor who noted, “When we make decisions in the NDC to have these vendors removed, some councillors go behind we back and tell the people not to move.
They own councillors backstabbing one another…when the vendors who are vending illegally in front of you, have more rights than you as a property owner, it means that something is definitely wrong.”
Affected residents have expressed no confidence in the NDC, and are thus calling on the government and relevant Minister, to address their concerns urgently. [Romario Blair.]

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