Mismanagement and public apathy

Certainties of life

It has often been said that death and taxes are the two certainties of life. For Guyanese, there is one more: flooding after rainfall. The point of reference for that certainty is the great flood of 2005 and, since then, the noticeable inundation of Guyanese homes and businesses with water and debris after minimal rainfall. This observation is particularly true of Georgetown and its environs whose beauty has faded into thin air despite the modern architecture that now adorns its sky. The causes are varied: breaching of the river and sea defences, broken kokers, clogged and silted drains and canals, and irresponsible citizens. Consequently, for the last 10 years, whenever it rains, Guyanese no longer wonder if the place will flood. They expect it to happen and wonder how bad it would be. They go about life as if flooding was inevitable and the public authorities who spend their tax dollars to prevent it were helpless. This article holds the view that flooding in Guyana is as much a consequence of topography as it is the consequence of poor management and public apathy.

Low-lying state

Everyone understands that the coastline of Guyana lies below mean sea level which could make spontaneous drainage after rainfall near impossible. It is this reality that resulted in the creation of the network of canals, trenches and gutters which, along with the conservancy, have been relied on to manage excessive amounts of rainfall. When the tide is high, draining water from the land has to wait until the tide subsides because opening the kokers under high tide conditions would be more harmful than helpful. Depending on the behaviour of the tide and quantity of the rainfall, some amount of water could be expected to be sitting around, especially when the pumps do not work or are incapable of getting the job done fast enough. The expectation however is that once the tide is ebbing, the water will drain since the sluices could be opened to aid the pumps which might be at work. The key thus to preventing flooding in Guyana is the ability of the conservancy and the network of canals, trenches, and gutters to be deep enough to hold the water until collectively they could allow it to flow and drain the land through the outflow points. The low-lying state of the coast makes that a necessity and the proper management and maintenance of that infrastructure are crucial.

 Discomfort

This brings up the issue of management. In less than two months, Guyanese will come upon the 10th anniversary of the great flood of 2005. It is an anniversary that they would rather forget but were reminded of sorely on Thursday when the city and other parts of the country flooded again after about 7.5 inches of rain fell in a 24-hour period. Even though not as severe as 2005, the event has left many households and businesses, once again, in a state of discomfort and with additional financial burden. The severity of the flood of 2005 should have galvanized the government to act expeditiously to improve Guyana’s drainage situation. Guyanese expected that the effort to prevent the recurrence of the problem would have been a comprehensive one. They expected the government to consider and implement all that needed to be done, including cleaning, repairing and desilting the infrastructure in Georgetown. This meant ensuring that the infrastructure was adequate to manage the water, that it was in good working order and that the people understood and were in a position to discharge their obligations to the effort of keeping their drains and parapets clean.

Measuring effort

It suggested therefore that time, resources and attention would be devoted to fixing the problem. The need for swift action was dictated by the fear, distress and inconvenience that 2005 wrought on the people. Using an input-output model to measure the effort of the government would enable us to see that much time has elapsed and large sums of money have been spent on fixing the drainage problem since the disaster of 2005. The model considers the resources (time, money, and personnel) put into flood control and the results that were achieved. A review of the national budgets of 2008 to 2014 reveals that as of 2014 in excess of $49 billion would have been spent on expanding and reinforcing the drainage infrastructure of the country over an eight-year period. This allocation represents about 21 per cent of the money spent on infrastructure projects during that time. None of it or very little appears to have been spent on the infrastructure in Georgetown and its environs where nearly half the population lives.

According to the statements made in the corresponding annual budgets, this financial input would have produced a range of resources that was supposed to prevent flooding and warn Guyanese of imminent rainfall that could cause flooding with the acquisition of the Doppler Radar system. The flagship project in drainage is the construction of the Hope Canal to drain water from the East Demerara Water Conservancy (EDWC) on the East Coast of Demerara. It has still not been completed as yet. In addition, the management of the drainage system should have benefited between 2008 and 2014 from the acquisition of excavators, pumps, pontoons and other equipment and services to help eliminate harmful flooding. In 2009, a sophisticated Doppler Radar system and an enhanced meteorological department that is supposed to be capable of providing continuous real time radar coverage were in place.

The input-output model shows that money was spent and goods and services were received in exchange. With more details one could also assess the efficiency with which the activities were performed. What is just as important though is the effectiveness of the investments. The outcomes evaluation model helps to determine if the investments were effective. The expectation is that flooding would be reduced to inconsequential proportions. In other words, with all the money spent and resources acquired Guyanese would have expected a change in their lives that included little to no flooding of their homes and businesses. The use of the outcomes model helps us to realize that the desired change has not occurred and after Thursday’s rain, the effectiveness of the public spending remains in doubt. The attempts by the government to fix the problem have not fully paid off and the outcome suggests that not enough was done in Georgetown over the nearly 10 years since the horrors of 2005.

Appeals

In the face of this noticeable failure as evidenced by Thursday’s rainfall, there have been appeals by public officials not to play the blame game. Every government official who has spoken about the flooding has made this appeal while identifying the desilting of the drains as the reason the flooding was not worse. Yet, not a single public official was able to allay the fears and concerns of the people of this nation by telling them what to expect from the supposed desilting plan. None has been able to tell Guyanese what the scope of work is. They have not been able to say what proportion of the work that would reduce the risk of loss by households and businesses from future rainfall is still to be completed and in what time span. Guyanese have been listening to hear what effect the completion of the task will have on them and when the task will be completed. A project plan would have all of that information ready and not a single official could provide reassuring details of this mysteriously active flood prevention plan for Georgetown.

Obligations of Guyanese

What is equally disturbing is the fact that no one could say what role and obligation Guyanese have in preventing or minimizing flooding. Surely, it cannot be acceptable practice for property owners to cover drains and prevent them from being cleaned. Surely, it cannot be acceptable for property owners to have debris and grass in gutters that obstruct the flow of water, causing them to turn into breeding grounds for mosquitoes. Surely, it cannot be acceptable practice for building contractors to let sand, cement and debris fill up drains to the point where they lose their role of enabling water to flow. Guyanese, as landlords or tenants, should be made to fulfil their obligations to keep the gutters for which they have responsibility clean and clear so that the water can flow and sanitation workers can do their jobs properly.

But people follow the examples that they see. They noticed that the government left the canals, trenches and alleyways for which it has responsibility to grow grass, to accumulate waste and to be clogged by contractors and irresponsible citizens. People knew that failure to clear the outflow structures meant that the water from their gutters would go nowhere. Yet, the people of Georgetown did nothing to get action. Further, the government stood idly by as parts of Georgetown were turned into waste disposal sites and the people did nothing. The government turned a blind eye to the reckless conversion of the public reserve into sites that obstructed the cleaning of gutters and alleyways and the people did nothing. That attitude now has Georgetown with or without rainfall looking like a derelict city. Moreover, no public official is ready to acknowledge that the meteorological service with its sophisticated Doppler system was unable to provide the early warning that could have saved Guyanese billions of dollars. Given the apathy that they have displayed over the years, Guyanese are being asked to ignore this and other failures and to join hands to find a solution when they have not been told what went wrong with many of the systems in the first place.

Defensive posture

In making an objective evaluation of public spending, the government must realize that no one is seeking to blame anyone. What the government and its spokespersons must understand is that the evaluation effort is to pinpoint the problems so that appropriate corrective action could be taken. It is also to demonstrate the poor quality of leadership that exists at all levels of government and to emphasize the importance of transparency and public accountability. A defensive posture by the public officials is understandable because the failure of the public expenditure to solve the flooding problems lies in their domain. Just imagine for one minute that a Public Procurement Commission was in place. A very long time ago that commission could have helped to identify the best and worst practices in the production and delivery of public goods and services. Where performance was bad, that information could be used to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of public services to Guyanese. For the better part of 12 years now, Guyanese have been denied that benefit, and because of their own apathy, they must experience distress and financial losses to now.