Latest update November 21st, 2024 1:00 AM
High tides invade coastal Guyana… More than 400 affected, residents must be compensated – Jagdeo
Leader of the People’s Progressive Party/ Civic (PPP/C), Bharrat Jagdeo, emphatically stated that more than 400 residents were affected by the September 29 to October 2 coastal high tides.
During his weekly press briefing on Thursday, Jagdeo said that he had visited the affected Mahaica- Berbice flood areas over the past weekend.
During that visit, he stated that “thousands” of residents were affected by the floods, and not 400, as revealed by the Civil Defense Commission (CDC), after conducting their assessments.
“Take for example, the long stretch in Region Five (Mahaica- Berbice); that area has been totally inundated for people north of the public road. They have lost everything– their rice, their cattle, their cash-crop, even their little livestock.
In other parts of the country too, in Region Three (Essequibo Islands- West Demerara) particularly, but many other areas, the pockets around the country… have been affected too.
If you look at those very areas, the salt moved through the kokers, under the road and moved all the way up into the farmlands at the back. It has affected cultivation deep into those areas,” Jagdeo explained at his Church Street office.
Due to the flooding, he further said that the salt water has now caused the soil to become infertile.
“Even grass for the animals would not grow in some of those areas. Many of them have loans, they have obligations to the millers, and they rely on the little cash-crop for their livelihood. They’re all now wondering what will happen next in their lives,” Jagdeo stated.
Considering all of the misfortune that has befallen the coastal residents, the Opposition Leader firmly believes that the flood-affected “must get all the help” and that they must be compensated.
With regards to the mulling of the distribution of financial assistance, Jagdeo said that the government should extend help through the CDC.
“Give it to the CDC. The CDC through a bipartisan process must do that… But I believe that the help should go to the farmers and all the persons who were affected.”
When questioned about whether he would support the government’s application, for monies from the contingency plan to assist the flood-affected, the Opposition Leader concurred.
However, Jagdeo adds that the application must be done in a controlled environment, and conducted at a “technical level” with “proper assessment by technical staff in the ministries, not political staff.”
Meanwhile, he could not state how much money would be enough to satisfy the affected residents.
“We have to wait until the residents have calculated their losses. We are not fixed at a particular figure at this time, so I am very skeptical of any number that [the government] might just pull out like that without getting details from the people themselves,” he concluded.
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