APNU is calling on the government to implement a national strategy to break the cycle of flooding that has been repeatedly plaguing all the regions of the country in recent years.
APNU in a press statement yesterday pointed out that the December-January-February rainy season, when the heaviest rains seem to occur, has become a time of annual anguish for most of the population.
According to APNU, despite the high cost of damage to homes, loss of crops, and spread of water-borne and vector-borne disease over the years, the government has never implemented a national, long-term, comprehensive counter-flooding strategy.
APNU contended that the administration seems inclined “to pursue the short-term tactic of providing relief and compensation to flood victims rather than the long-term task of improving the infrastructure to prevent flooding.”
Farmers and other residents all across the country, from along the Aruka River in Region One to the Pomeroon River in Region Two; Canals Polder in Region Three; Mahaica River in Region Four; Mahaicony River in Region Five and Yakusari in the Black Bush Polder in Region Six, are suffering from the current floods which started in early January, the opposition party observed.
It said further that hinterland residents still remember how the floods at Waramadong in Region Seven, at Mahdia in Region Eight; in the Rupununi in Region Nine and at Kwakwani in Region Ten also wrought havoc with their lives in 2010 and 2011.
No part of the country it seems has ever been safe from the scourge of floods, APNU said.
And the party further contended that “the system of coastal conservancies and canals has been compromised by the decline of the sugar plantation system and the rise of new housing schemes and townships.”
Moreover, this has been aggravated by poor solid waste management; neglect of the drainage and irrigation infrastructure, including kokers, the deliberate destruction of drainage canals to facilitate construction of houses by ‘dry-weather’ contractors and rising sea levels owing to global warming, APNU declared.
It also pointed out that the PPP/C administration, after more than 19 years in office, cannot blame anyone but itself for the “repetitive, annual disastrous flooding.”
Climate change and rising sea levels will not disappear overnight and the administration has to be aware that at least since the catastrophic ‘Great Flood’ of 2005 weather patterns will never be the same again, APNU noted.
The party asserted that it must be clear that the current ad hoc measures to provide relief and compensation to victims cannot solve the problem of annual floods, and called on the PPP/C administration to formulate a strategic plan to protect the people from this yearly distress, the statement concluded.
