Following a government outreach to Region Two, the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA) is to desilt a number of Pomeroon River canals.
According to a Department of Public Information (DPI) release, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the NDIA, Fredrick Flatts and his team visited several areas along the Pomeroon River, as a direct response to issues raised by persons who visited the outreach in Anna Regina just over three weeks ago.
“Following the meeting, which was labelled `Taking the government to the people’, a number of persons in the Pomeroon area made complaints concerning the poor drainage and irrigation in their areas. We visited a number of areas along the Nunes Canal, Jones Canal, Friendship Canal, we were also in Hackney Canal,” Flatts said.
Yolanda Ashby is a farmer living along one of these canals, not too far from the Martindale Primary School, in the lower Pomeroon area. She is faced with the issue of navigating the canal during low tide as it is the only way in and out of the community.
DPI said that Ashby was surprised to see a team from the NDIA visiting her personally as a follow-up to a few issues she had raised at the outreach. “We’re facing a problem with the canal, it needs desilting because it’s shallow, you could see the antelope grass has taken over. However, even clearing the grass will not solve the problem because the canal is shallow,” she said.
DPI said that the CEO took the time to listen and explained to Ashby that he along with his engineers were aware of the problems she and others were facing and assured her that the issue will be resolved.
“We’ll be excavating that channel, right now the award of tender is awaiting NPTAB’s [National Procurement and Tender Administration Board] attention, so we are hoping that we will be able to physically start those works perhaps in another two or three weeks.”
This was welcome news for Ashby, as DPI said that she recalled the ‘run around’ she faced years ago when she had first raised the issue during the previous administration.
