After some four inches of rainfall between Wednesday night and Thursday morning, Georgetown was swamped – yet again. Long suffering residents of the capital were forced once more to put on their long boots, lift their furniture to higher ground, rescue water-soaked rugs and mats and bail out their bottom flats.
In some areas, places which had not flooded previously were under water this time as some citizens – dreading a repeat of the disastrous 2005 Great Flood – have raised their yards so high that any accumulation drains off into their neighbours’, since the drains don’t work as they should.
While the water began to go down some hours after noon on Thursday, in places, up to late that night, there was still ankle-high water in some yards and drains, and canals and trenches remained swollen; the obvious threat was that if it rained again, even just an inch, the city would flood again. In addition, as the water in the drains was rising on Thursday morning, all the garbage which had been dumped in them floated to the top and then over onto the streets. So that when the water subsided by yesterday morning, it left behind lines of garbage decorating several city streets; a depressing sight that ought to have moved anyone with a hint of decency to tears, anger and a let’s do something about this mode.
One has to assume that the City Council and the central government are devoid of this virtue. Perhaps the years of watching the once proud Garden City catapult into its current state have taken their toll on the sensibilities of those in authority. But those of us who still strive to keep our environment clean; who pay every month to have the grass on government reserves outside our homes cut and our drains cleared of vegetation and silt and still pay our annual taxes, find it totally unacceptable.
There will be the usual excuses, we know. We don’t need to hear the spin from City Hall and the Ministries of Works, Local Government and Agriculture about the lack of financial resources, high tides, littering, squatting and the ongoing passing of the buck. To any outsider looking in, it would be obvious what the fundamental problems are – a complete lack of pride in the environment by those in authority and a lack of respect for themselves and the citizenry.
No one needs be a rocket scientist or even an engineer to know that the last seven months of dry weather would have been the ideal time to remove vegetation and silt from the main drainage canals – and to truck them off the reserves to prevent them slipping back into the trenches. Why was this not done when it was patently obvious that unless they were cleaned the drains would not hold much water?
Residents of Section K Campbellville have complained that no work was done in that area since just after the Great Flood five years ago. Utterly unacceptable. Yes, City Hall is starved of funds, but to leave drainage unchecked in five years just takes the biscuit.
It is also well known that when it wants to the Ministry of Works steps in and clears certain areas, even though at times it conveniently claims that it is not responsible for the city. President Bharrat Jagdeo and other members of his Cabinet have said time and again that the City Council operates incompetently yet, with some sort of warped logic, they continue to take a hands-off approach to certain things despite this being inimical to the well-being of the citizens they were elected to serve.
And as for the Mayor and City Council, they should all be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. No self-respecting council would continue year after year to operate below budget, do a miserable job and whine about it. They should have resigned en bloc a long time ago if they really did care about the city and its citizens. This situation has gone on for too long. Something has got to give. It’s time that the council and the government stopped using the city as their political football and endeavour to get the work that needs doing done. Enough is enough.
