I refer to the recent phenomenon of tonnes of seaweed being deposited on our east coast and in Tobago. In fact, the Chairman of the Mayaro/Rio Claro Regional Corporation Hazaree Ramdeen has expressed his difficulty in dealing with the situation. He said that the Corporation is cleaning 17 miles of coastline daily and over 100 truckloads of seaweed have been removed so far.
Several people such as Ian Lambie and Deborah Koylass have pointed out that the seaweed can be used productively in different ways. In fact Chairman Hazaree has already adopted one productive measure by piling the seaweed in a vacant area and inviting the public to help themselves. In fact this initiative can be expanded to generate some income for the Corporation.
There appears to be many suggestions coming out on how to deal with this matter and I would like to suggest to the Chairman that he should convene a meeting of all interested people and organisations including representatives from the universities to further explore this matter so as to come up with productive solutions that would benefit his region and the country as a whole.
This would also serve to boost the image of local government to remind everyone especially those in Central Government that local government can play a fundamental role in broad-based regional and national development.
Lennox Sankersingh