She said she and her husband applied for a house lot several years ago and while their application was acknowledged once, no other correspondence came their way from the Housing Ministry. She said that several years ago officials from the Housing Ministry visited the area and a record was made of their names while the officials painted numbers on their homes. Some of the numbers were still evident yesterday. Other residents displayed acknowledgement letters they received from the Ministry of Housing offices in Region Three. Some dated back to 1998.
- Several homes along the sea wall at Anna Catherina Sea View, some of which were levelled following last week’s spring tide.
The residents stated that they had no qualms about relocating from the area but insisted that the authorities should put adequate measures in place for them to relocate, since their livelihoods depended on the surroundings they live in; the breadwinners of the households being fishermen. According to the residents, as it is the out-of-crop season in the cane fields, where most of the men work as cane cutters, the men would take up other trades in order to maintain their families.
Approximately 200 persons live in the Sea View area and some of the houses along the seawall were empty yesterday. According to a resident, some persons had temporarily relocated from the area in order to make arrangements for their children to attend school. Several homes, some of them small shacks, and their fences, were lying in the grass; the structures having fallen under the pressure created by waves which overtopped the seawall between Tuesday and Saturday of last week. Officials of the Guyana Power and Light Company were also in the area yesterday to remove meters from the homes of residents who planned to relocate from the area.
Meanwhile, Stabroek News understands that there was minimal flooding in parts of the Leguan, Essequibo River yesterday, where officials from the Ministry of Agriculture, National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA) and the Ministry of Public Works had been working round the clock to minimise water intrusion of the island’s sea defence, particularly in the Waterloo area.
A resident of La Bagatelle told Stabroek News that the spring tide appeared to have “cut”, adding that there has been “little” overtopping of the sea defence structure on the island.
There had been several instances of overtopping of the island’s sea defence over the past several months and residents there had been calling on the authorities to improve the sea-defence structure.
