On October 17th 2005 Guyana woke up to the news that extremely high tides were causing flooding on the East and West Coasts of Demerara.
But it was with total astonishment and
disbelief that I looked at The Evening News on the evening of the 17th
and discovered that everything was being blamed on the high tides by the
executive as if it was acceptable for the sea defences to be crumbling under
the circumstances.
The current misMinister of Agriculture
Satadeo Shaw actually kept repeating, like a broken record, that what was
happening was a result of the highest tides we have ever had and gave the
impression that there was nothing else to be done but to bear strain until it
went away.
It is total nonsense, lies and eye pass since
I say, that what we saw yesterday were the consequences of corruption,
incompetence and total disregard for the citizens of this country by its
elected officials.
Earlier this year after the floods on
the East Coast a Task Force was established to look into the drainage situation
in Region 4 with specific reference to the structures which were built years
ago, to relieve the Lama Conservancy water into the Demerara River if the
conservancy ever rose too high as a result of high rainfall, but had become
useless and unusable with disastrous results. In addition to the conservancy
situation however the Task Force was mandated to look into the maintenance of
kokers and drainage canals along the East Coast in Region 4.
Sadly at some point in time after the
public outrage had died down and people started to go about their business and
usual and the hype of the occasion passed, the government dissolved the Task
Force and passed back the job of renovating the system to the same incompetent
and corrupt officials who created the conditions for the disaster in the first
place, and so the Task Force handed over its findings and its work to the
D&I Chairman Ravi Narine, who publicly stated that he would be responsible
for finishing the work of the Task Force.
Now for those who do not know, the
Drainage and irrigation Board comes under the portfolio of the Ministry of
Agriculture in this case Satadeo Shaw. This means that the ultimate
responsibility for what happened along the East and West Coasts of Demerara yesterday
was ultimately Shaw's responsibility.
In the case of the East Coast, a koker
at BV/Triumph collapsed and I could see the rotten wood of the door in the
pictures that The Evening News took of the situation, also I am informed that
the grooves that holds the door in place on the concrete koker structure is
eroded to the extent that it could not hold the temporary door that was put in
place on the 17th October and that too blew out so the water that
was flooding the residents of the East Coast was not what was coming over the
top of the sea wall, but what was coming through a fourteen foot koker the door
which had been literally blown out because it was rotten and because the
grooves are worn down.
The truth of what I say is evidenced by
the fact that it was only at this point on the East Coast at Triumph/BV that
there was flooding, no where else was there was any flooding but everywhere
there was this overtopping!! So my conclusion is solid and that makes Shaw's
remarks that the flooding was due to the high water coming over the top of the
sea wall utter nonsense and totally unacceptable.
And it is Shaw that is the person responsible
for the collapsed koker door at Triumph/BV which was the main reason for the
huge amount of water we saw rushing in on to the poor residents there and not the
relatively small amount of spray that what was coming over the top of the wall;
anyone who has ever seen a koker open to the ocean will never forget it, to see
that amount of salt water 10-11 feet high and 12-14 feet wide coming in at
30-35 miles an hour and would push a truck out of its path as if it were a toy will
understand what I am saying, it is a frightening sight. And you can do nothing
but pray that the tide turns quickly so that the water can go down to allow you
to carry out some sort of corrective operation as happened in this case, but
since the groves of the structure itself were worn out, the temporary door also
blew out around 2 PM on the 17th causing more damage to people's
property; I get angry when I see it ladies and gentlemen, these completely
ignorant people running around the place telling the population total nonsense
and our reporters and our Media [even mine] and the very people
whose properties are literally floating away, are all standing there accepting
this ridiculous explanation! And they have to accept it, because there is no
law in the land, no functioning legal system that we can invoke which can give us
satisfaction; do you think that this can happen if we can carry Shaw to court
and get a billion dollars in damages? Of course not. And that may be the
saddest thing of all, that the residents affected will never be compensated
because Shaw and Narine will never be held accountable under the law for their
incompetence.
What we saw on the West Coast was
something completely different, what we saw there was the Ocean demolishing the
sea defences over an area estimated to be close to two thousand feet and spoke
ill of the regional administration and the D&I Board and the Ministry of
Agriculture in Region 3.
In the national annual budget the government's
allocation of money to do works is supposed to be conducted in a manner which
ensures that the funds are spent where it is most needed and it was criminal
negligence to allow the sea wall on the West Coast to get to the stage where
the Ocean can blow it away as if it were cardboard and here again let us draw
from what we saw on the East Coast sure the water was hitting the wall and
misting into the air but the wall held, nowhere on the East Coast did it
completely collapse as we saw in the West Coast, so it was incompetence and
neglect and not mother nature which was dealing us a blow we were incapable of
handling.
After the PPP came to power in 1992 they
made a man called Pariag Shkhai Regional Chairman in Region 3 and after him
they made Dookie a schoolteacher from hog island Regional Chairman, now
whatever else you want to say about Region 4, its chairman Allan Munroe is an
engineer and notwithstanding his being systematically starved for money he has
managed to force the national bodies to keep the sea defences in some sort of functioning
condition in region 4, but on my side of the river Sukhai the chairman from 1992
to 2001 was a PPP activist and I am unable to determine what else he was
qualified to do, what I do know was that for most of his time as chairman Shkhai
could hardly see the man was legally blind and then came Dookie who became
chairman in 2001and he is too busy doing other things to even look, much less
see now we all heard him telling us on the news that the water was tapping over
the sea wall, I hope that Dookie did not teach English in Hog Island, since the
correct word is topping over i.e. Dookie; the water was coming over the top and
not the tap.
The public will recall that recently the
PNC had held a protest at Parika since this same Dookie, who has been implicated
in numerous corrupt practices, had given his brother a contract for 58 million
dollars to build a market for the roadside vendors at Parika and what is
visible after the contract was completed could not possibly be worth 58 million
dollars.
Incompetent and corrupt regional
chairmen in Region 3 since 1992 is what has caused the disaster we all saw on
the 17 October 2005, on the west Coast sea defences, we have a highway which
was recently renovated on the West Demerara my question again was why did we
need such a fancy road on the West Demerara? What was wrong with the old one? Why
did we not spend the money where it was really needed, on the sea defences, now
thousands will have to suffer as a result!!
