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There is no shortage of contingency funds for sea defence works
DEAR EDITOR,
What started as a minuscule crack in the sea defence in February 2019, is now a major disaster covering a large swath of land from Cottage to Belvedere Villages and all in between. The farmers who live and work in these villages have had their lives and livelihoods devastated by the flooding of their lands with the salty waters of the Atlantic Ocean. I saw this human and economic disaster firsthand when I accompanied Bharrat Jagdeo on the 29th September. The leader of the Opposition cautioned all concerned not to make this issue about politics and urged that we support all efforts to bring relief to the residents and a solution to the breach in the sea defenses. The government subsequently requisitioned Eight Hundred Million dollars in emergency funds on the 4th of October to address the breach and no objection was raised by anyone.
I revisited the area on the 27th of October and to my astonishment, the area affected had quadrupled, this led to me asking lots of questions and the answers shook me to the core. The facts are that, the Regional Chairman of Region 5, Vickchand Ramphal, during one of his many outreaches in the Region, in February 2019, was alerted to a small breach of the sea defence at Dantzig. He subsequently made this know to the Minister of Public Infrastructure, David Patterson, the Mahaica Mahaicony Abary Agricultural Development Authority (MMA/ADA) and to the Regional Democratic Council (RDC) pleading for emergency works to be conducted to avoid a disaster. Ramphal’s calls were ignored. However, the Regional Executive Officer (REO) of Region 5, Ovid Morrison, who is the Government representative in the Region, held a press conference and informed the public that they should not pay attention to the Regional Chairman because he is blatantly lying to the public and engaged in fear-mongering. As a result of this negligence, the recent two flooding events in the communities from Dantzig to Fairfield are the result of this political ignorance.
Further, the residents informed us that a contractor, who is a close friend to the APNU+AFC Coalition Government, got a contract to conduct remedial works along with the sea defense. However, the contract, according to reports, has never undertaken such works before and caused more harm than good. The residents also informed us that some Government Officials, who visited the first time the flooding occurred some 4 weeks back, stated that the Government does not have the necessary funds to undertake a comprehensive repair of the sea defense.
Editor, there is no shortage of contingency funds for works such as this; the Granger administration has been drawing down on those funds all year ostensibly to fix this breach, as recently as August, Four Hundred and Sixty Million dollars was allocated to these works. The question has to be asked if this completely avoidable disaster has become a ‘cash cow’ for corrupt government officials and their cronies. It would seem the Granger administration sees profit even in human and economic disaster, not one bottle of water has been offered in relief to the farmers in the affected areas up to the time of writing this letter. This rises to the level of criminal negligence by the ‘caring’ government.
Respectfully
Robin Singh
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