Dear Editor,
On February 15, President Ramotar opened the road bridge across the proposed Hope Canal, one of four major components comprising the Hope Canal Project (HCP) which should have been completed in 2013 but delays were experienced in project completion because of poor construction management and incompetence by the contractors as well as lax project oversight and shoddy construction performance (canal and sluice gates) by the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) through its executing agency the National Drainage & Irrigation Authority (NDIA), despite the President’s assurance that the project is being completed in a timely fashion. At this juncture, Dr Ramsammy, Minister of Agriculture cannot state specifically when the project will be completed, ie, give a specific date when flood water from the East Demerara Water Conservancy (EDWC) could be safely released into the Atlantic Ocean, although he had earlier given the contractors April 30 as their completion date after several time extensions with more to come.
The major rainy season for this year will begin in a few months’ time and once again those living in the low-lying coastlands bordering the EDWC will be under threat of repeat of the 2005 flood disaster as there is no way HCP will be completed to give some relief before the end of 2014, as very little has been done since that time to remedy the underlying causes and much remains to be done to get HCP operational as this is an integrated project and all the elements must be completed before the whole could function as is expected.
It has been stated that HCP is a US$15M project. What has not been cited categorically is its projected final cost which is likely to be a ‘shocker’ when it is eventually made public, as no large government project with such an extensive time overrun has ever been completed without hefty additional costs.
The NDIA has claimed that the HCP when completed will prevent flooding of the residents of Mahaica, Mahaicony, Abary, Hope and surrounding communities.
The NDIA has no data/report to back such a monstrous claim and the people living in low-lying areas which are influenced by EDWC should not be deluded by these unsupported assurances and become too smug about their safety and the protection of their property from flooding.
HCP was conceived and designed to relieve flood water from the EDWC. Presently, some of this water is discharged into the Mahaica River via the Lama and Maduni Sluices when the river is usually in its flood mode, making a bad situation worse. This additional volume of water from EDWC causes the flooding of lands on both banks of the river as the water flows to the Atlantic Ocean. Is HCP the ultimate solution to prevent the flooding of lands along the Mahaica River?
Only time will tell, but for sure the Lama and Maduni sluices cannot be scrapped as they have to be kept operational for those unusual circumstances yet to come.
Finally, the Ministry of Agriculture should state why heavy security is necessary to prevent bona fide access to the various sites of HCP as the President has stated the project is being funded entirely by the people of Guyana and transparency and accountability are expected. Also, the public should be advised about the status of the Conservancy Adaptation Study which should have been ready for public scrutiny since March 2013.
Yours faithfully,
Charles Sohan