Renu­ka Singh

Gov­ern­ment's bud­get for a na­tion­wide de­silt­ing pro­gramme grew from an ap­proved $1 mil­lion to some $32 mil­lion with­in the first six months of 2018.

How­ev­er, de­spite spend­ing that mon­ey to clear wa­ter­ways and rivers, sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ties in the coun­try were dev­as­tat­ed by flood­ing, in­clud­ing ar­eas like La Hor­quet­ta that nev­er ex­pe­ri­enced this type of del­uge.

The ad­di­tion­al $31 mil­lion in­clud­ed a $9 mil­lion trans­fer from the flood mit­i­ga­tion pro­gramme and an­oth­er $500,000 from the flood al­le­vi­a­tion and drainage pro­gramme. None of the mon­ey al­lo­cat­ed to flood mit­i­ga­tion and flood al­le­vi­a­tion and drainage was used for the pur­pose it was in­tend­ed.

It al­so means that while the Gov­ern­ment, specif­i­cal­ly the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port, spent $32 mil­lion on de­silt­ing wa­ter­ways, no mon­ey was spent on flood mit­i­ga­tion, al­le­vi­a­tion, and drainage.

Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan con­firmed the in­creased al­lo­ca­tion for the de­silt­ing pro­gramme and al­so con­firmed the trans­fer of funds from the oth­er flood mit­i­ga­tion pro­grammes.

"The $500,000 was ini­tial­ly al­lo­cat­ed to do a study to al­le­vi­ate the flood­ing in down­town Port-of-Spain but we felt that all we did was stud­ies and we want­ed to im­ple­ment some­thing that would ac­tu­al­ly work," Sinanan said.

Sinanan said dur­ing the mid-year re­view, the Cab­i­net ap­proved a fur­ther $10 mil­lion for sump pumps and works to en­sure flood­ing in South Quay does not ham­per the pub­lic for long.

"It in­volves cut­ting the ground, putting in more drains and the pumps to pull wa­ter off the ground and get­ting that wa­ter out to the sea," he said.

That pro­gramme falls un­der the am­bit of the Pro­gramme for Up­grad­ing Roads Ef­fi­cien­cy Unit (Pure) and was con­tract­ed out to Ju­nior Sam­my. It is ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed with­in the next two months.

The de­silt­ing pro­gramme start­ed back in May at the Cu­napo Riv­er in San­gre Grande. There was al­so work done in Pe­nal and oth­er small­er wa­ter­cours­es. How­ev­er, by Au­gust Sinanan was forced to ad­just the de­silt­ing pro­gramme and re-do work on wa­ter­ways that flood­ed even af­ter de­silt­ing.

But even with the mas­sive na­tion­wide flood­ing ex­pe­ri­ences across the coun­try last week­end, in­clud­ing in some of the ar­eas which the de­silt­ing pro­gramme tar­get­ed, Sinanan said he was sat­is­fied that the pro­gramme was suc­cess­ful.

"Imag­ine what would have hap­pened if we didn't do the amount of work on the wa­ter­ways," he said.

Over the past two weeks, sev­er­al parts of the coun­try were un­der wa­ter. Re­cov­ery ef­forts are still un­der­way in some of the hard­er hit ar­eas of Green­vale, La Hor­quet­ta, Kel­ly Vil­lage, and St He­le­na, oth­er parts of Cen­tral and San­gre Grande.

Sinanan said ten lo­cal con­trac­tors were re­tained for the de­silt­ing work.

"All bond­ed con­trac­tors at CTB (Cen­tral Ten­ders Board) rates," he said.

He did not re­spond to sub­se­quent ques­tions about the con­trac­tors who were hired to do the works.

Sinanan al­so con­firmed that pri­vate com­pa­nies have been found il­le­gal­ly cart­ing away por­tions of the Ca­roni riv­er bank to sell as land­fill. Sinanan could not name the com­pa­nies and said that no one has been charged in that mat­ter, but said po­lice were aware of it.

At least three res­i­dents con­tact­ed by Guardian Me­dia con­firmed that they saw trucks mov­ing loads of the top­soil. One res­i­dent said the truck dri­vers dis­closed that a load can cost as much as $800.

But Sinanan, how­ev­er, said this did not have any ma­jor im­pact on the re­cent flood­ing.

"We looked at the riv­er banks and not enough was moved to im­pact the flood­ing," Sinanan said.

De­silt­ing work:

May 2018—Black Wa­ter Chan­nel at Tul­sa Trace, Pe­nal

May 2018— Cu­napo Riv­er, San­gre Grande

June 2018—Diego Mar­tin wa­ter­cours­es

Ju­ly 2018—Mar­aval riv­er

Au­gust 2018—De­silt­ing pro­gramme ad­just­ed af­ter flood­ing in parts of the coun­try.