The Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development (MLGRD) on Wednesday announced that investigation has been ordered into Tuesday’s flooding of Albouystown.
Albouystown was flooded after the door to the Sussex Street koker was not properly closed due to a malfunction, although it was suggested that the door might have been tampered with.
According a press release from MLGRD, Minister Norman Whittaker said it is the Mayor and City Council’s responsibility to operate the koker, not the government nor the ministry. He has since ordered acting Town Clerk Carol Sooba to have her technical team launch an investigation into the cause of the flood. At the same time, the ministry is doing an investigation of its own to determine if sabotage or incompetence was responsible.
The release said hours before the flood, the ministry was informed that an excavator belonging to the City Council was cleaning the canal, which was already de-silted a few weeks earlier under the government’s “Clean-up my Country” programme. The Ministry questioned why the council was de-silting a canal that has already been de-silted.
Further, the Ministry added that a resident said some men were seen earlier in the day removing the working pump from the koker and replacing it with another. As a result, it also questioned the removal of the working pump at the koker.
Whittaker voiced concerns that someone might have deliberately tampered with the koker and said it is an act of sabotage against the people of Albouys-town. More than that, the Minister was quoted as saying that the flooding showed another round of “incompetence and callousness” of the council and “its failure to safeguard the lives and livelihood of the people of Georgetown.”
