Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha has called on the Georgetown Mayor and City Council (M&CC) to enforce better management of drainage and irrigation structures under their control in the city after over 250 households and businesses in Charlestown and Work-en-Rust were affected by flooding yesterday.
“This morning the NDIA received reports from City Engineer, Colvern Venture, that there was an issue with closing the gate at the Princes Street sluice. It was reported that sometime between 9:00pm (Saturday) night and 4:00am (yesterday) morning the sluice operator was supposed to close the sluice gate but it appears as though that did not happen. The tide began to rise which resulted in an intrusion of water through the sluice gate which ultimately resulted in the flooding of several nearby communities. Thereafter, it was reported that several unsuccessful attempts to close the gate were made by the sluice operator and engineers from the Georgetown M&CC. After speaking with the NDIA Board Chairman, I instructed that the NDIA lend support to the City Council to monitor this structure. So during the next scheduled closure of the sluice door, our engineer was on site to monitor and give assistance to M&CC personnel. The door was closed and they were able to use the Princes Street pump to start draining water from these areas, which ultimately resulted in a significant reduction in the amount of flood water in these communities,” Mustapha said, according to a release from his ministry.
Mustapha added that the operation of the City’s D&I structures that drain into the Demerara River are the primary responsibility of the City Council. He also said that, at the time, there appeared to be a lack of effective management at the sluice in question which resulted in the flooding of the communities.
Mustapha said that it was unacceptable that persons were subject to this amount discomfort on a National Holiday and called on the M&CC to enforce stricter penalties on persons who are found to be negligent in their task of opening and closing City sluices in a timely manner.
The release said that a statement issued by the Civil Defence Commission noted that, in the Charlestown area, the roads were covered with about 8 inches of water while as much as 12 inches of water were on the Werk-en-Rust roadway. The CDC is said to be assessing damage to the households and businesses affected.
