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Wednesday, July 9, 2025

Minister: Toco, Matelot need building codes

by

20161209

Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein and chair­man of the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion, Ter­ry Ron­don, are ad­mit­ting there is need for a "prop­er build­ing pol­i­cy in rur­al ar­eas and more par­tic­u­lar­ly To­co, Matelot and Grand Riv­iere," ar­eas which are an­nu­al­ly af­fect­ed by heavy rains and winds.

The com­mu­ni­ties suf­fered for yet an­oth­er time this week as heavy winds and rains pound­ed the ar­eas leav­ing dozens of land­slips, homes cov­ered in slush and mud and crops de­stroyed.

Ho­sein, who along with Works Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinana­nun­der­took an aer­i­al tour of the af­fect­ed ar­eas, said a so­lu­tion must be found to the peren­ni­al prob­lem.

He ad­mit­ted it would not be easy, but he said they had to try.

Ho­sein said while on the aer­i­al tour he was "shocked" by the dev­as­ta­tion which he saw. He said, "When we were go­ing over the moun­tain, we saw the earth and there was no green­ery; that is to tell you how hard the rain fell. The grav­el was com­ing down; it was scary to know the down­pour was so heavy. We saw dozens of land­slides from the air."

Fol­low­ing the aer­i­al tour, he said he sub­se­quent­ly re­turned to To­co, where he spent the day last week Fri­day. Ho­sein said he or­gan­ised food, wa­ter and build­ing ma­te­ri­als for res­i­dents, but it was dif­fi­cult to dri­ve through be­cause of the land­slips.

"Even the T&TEC trucks were hav­ing dif­fi­cul­ty get­ting in­to some of the ar­eas," he said.

Ho­sein said it was clear that these com­mu­ni­ties which suf­fered dev­as­ta­tion an­nu­al­ly need­ed more than tem­po­rary as­sis­tance. He said: "We have a Rur­al De­vel­op­ment Team and I have dis­cussed with the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary that I want the team to meet with the chair­man and mem­bers of San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty, re­li­gious bod­ies, the schools, the fish­er-folk ,we have to sit down and dis­cuss so­lu­tions."

From the aer­i­al tour of the area he said they no­ticed that "peo­ple have built hous­es on the hills and riv­er banks. It is clear that build­ing codes in these ar­eas are not what they should be. We need to ad­dress that. The un­for­tu­nate thing is that peo­ple have their homes al­ready but we have to ed­u­cate them about the dan­gers in how they are build­ing."

He added: "When they build a house on a riv­er bank, the rivers in­vade their homes when the rains come, slush from the hills and rivers in­vade their homes and they are filled with slush and mud. It is a dan­ger­ous place to live, but peo­ple have hous­es al­ready. It will al­ways be like that un­less we can get peo­ple to think dif­fer­ent­ly, that area is prone to dis­as­ter," he said.

Ron­don agreed. He said: "We have to have a build­ing pol­i­cy in rur­al ar­eas be­cause it is very hard on us." As coun­cil­lor for the area he said, he would get se­ri­ous on the is­sue in Jan­u­ary.

"It will be a pri­or­i­ty in the New Year we have to go out and ed­u­cate the peo­ple," he said.

Ron­don ad­mit­ted that "this is a dis­as­ter prone area be­cause we are lo­cat­ed be­tween two moun­tains."

He added: "Year af­ter year it is get­ting worse. We did drainage, but when they cut in­to the moun­tains it cut off the drainage. Right now, I es­ti­mate the dam­age and loss­es to be in the re­gion of two mil­lion dol­lars or more, be­cause is is not just homes and per­son­al items, it is food crops, boats, en­gines, nets," he said.

"So why are peo­ple build­ing homes on the moun­tains and so close to the rivers? In the dry sea­son it is beau­ti­ful. But when the rains come and the riv­er mouth close mud and slush gush­es in­to homes. In one case, a man in To­co can't live in his house again."

Asked how peo­ple who built on the moun­tain­sides and the riv­er banks got wa­ter and elec­tric­i­ty, Ron­don ad­mit­ted he in­ter­vened on their be­half to help them, but he said ,"I, too, have to stop help­ing them. I will al­so tell the build­ing in­spec­tors to is­sue a no cause no­tice to them so they can't build."

Ron­don is lob­by­ing for a dis­as­ter cen­tre that can quick­ly mo­bilise to get trac­tors and oth­er equip­ment in­to af­fect­ed ar­eas."


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