Dear Editor,
It appeared that the November ’14-January ’15 rainy season commenced on November 19, arriving with a vengeance as it dumped over 5” of rainfall on Georgetown and much of the low-lying coastland during a 24-hour period, causing widespread flooding and extensive damage to properties.
Unfortunately this is a yearly ritual and it was expected that those living in vulnerable areas would have taken steps such as raising/empoldering their properties above expected flood levels to prevent recurring damage.
Instead they placed their hopes on the government to provide them with the protection necessary from annual flooding but which has never been done in a planned and organized way to achieve the desired results. The government is fully aware of the effects of global warming, climate change, ocean level rise, El Niño and their adverse effects on the existing drainage system, but lack of strategic planning, incompetence, poor and muddled management have all contributed in one way or another to failure of the coastal drainage system to cope with large volumes of flood waters to prevent flooding of low-lying properties because of silted canals, broken sluices, clogged outfalls and downed pumps. In Georgetown shifting blame for the flooding and plenty of excuses to do nothing have been the order of the day as no one cares or seems to take responsibility for anything. The dysfunctional NDCs just drift along waiting for the NDIA to show up with the pumps to assist the sluices. The evidence suggests there was confusion everywhere as no one agency was in charge to coordinate the national effort as the media showed the President and his ministers travelling to selected flooded areas making spurious excuses for the flooding and re-assuring stunned residents that help was on the way to remove the flood waters from their communities.
Minister Benn in offering his excuse for doing nothing was quick to state that the drainage system in the flooded areas could only handle 1.5 ins of rainfall in 24 hours so there was little that could have been done to prevent flooding, and much of the same could be expected during the next round of heavy downpours. He has failed to assure the people that anything substantive has and will be done to improve their drainage system to handle larger volumes of flood water without overtopping onto their properties.
As was evident, the government did little or nothing before the start of the current rainy season to clear the silted inland drains and sluices’ outfall channels, or repair the broken pumps and rotted revetments constricting flows.
However, once the extent of the flooding became evident some pumps and excavators were deployed helter-skelter here and there with little effect to remedy the situation as the damage was already done. Georgetown and Guyana’s low-lying coastland have complex gravity drainage systems (inland drains, sluices, outfall channels, etc) working in tandem, and for them to function effectively all elements have to be in fully working condition. If a sluice and its inland canals are in tip-top condition but its outfall channel is silted the flood water to be discharged is going nowhere and vice versa.
Therefore the drainage system cannot be expected to operate efficiently in a piecemeal fashion. The devolution of drainage responsibilities to the M&CC and NDCs is not working, and the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA) which seems to be always dispensing resources/taking action in crisis situations rather than before has failed to execute its mandate because of micro-management by the Minister of Agriculture to satisfy political imperatives.
It is time that the government look for an alternative management organisation capable of providing effective drainage for the coastland and the city. During the colonial administration of Guyana, engineers managed the drainage systems in districts established along the coastland under the central responsibility of a Drainage and Irrigation Department, and flooding at that time was never as frequent and extensive as it is today.
Yours faithfully,
Charles Sohan
