Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

Port-of-Spain May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne has had enough of the garbage clog­ging the cap­i­tal’s drains and yes­ter­day, he put cit­i­zens on no­tice: clean up or pay up.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia along­side en­gi­neers and drainage of­fi­cials at the Ari­api­ta Av­enue flood­gates, Al­leyne said care­less lit­ter­ing was di­rect­ly fu­elling the floods that have hit down­town streets and homes in re­cent weeks.

“We have a sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenge with the way mem­bers of the pub­lic treat with waste, the way they dis­pose of their rub­bish,” Al­leyne told re­porters.

“We need all hands on deck with con­ser­va­tion and re­cy­cling. As we go in­to the un­der­ground drains across the city, we see the ef­fects of lit­ter­ing and dump­ing all across the city. We need every sin­gle cit­i­zen of Trinidad and To­ba­go to be more con­scious about the way in which they dis­pose of their garbage, be­cause it does have an im­pact on the flood­ing sit­u­a­tion in the city.”

The may­or hint­ed at tougher mea­sures com­ing soon.

“The coun­cil has tak­en some de­ci­sions rel­a­tive to san­i­ta­tion in the city of Port-of-Spain,” Al­leyne said. “With­in a week, we will have a com­pre­hen­sive con­ver­sa­tion with the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. We are look­ing at en­force­ment, at fines, and at oth­er tools to make sure this stops.”

The in­spec­tion brought to­geth­er city en­gi­neers, the Drainage Di­vi­sion of the Min­istry of Works, and the Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit.

“We are work­ing every sin­gle week on the clear­ing of our un­der­ground drains,” Al­leyne ex­plained.

“To­day, we came to take a look at the flood­gate that is here at the end of Ari­api­ta Av­enue with the ex­perts from the Drainage Di­vi­sion and our own en­gi­neer­ing de­part­ment. We’ve di­ag­nosed some re­cur­rent works that we can do, and we ex­pect that in do­ing those works, we’ll be able to bring about some im­prove­ment in the sit­u­a­tion in this area.”

He stressed that the coun­cil is not on­ly re­act­ing but plan­ning ahead.

“We know there’s been an in­creased amount of rain­fall,” Al­leyne said.

“As we see fur­ther de­vel­op­ment in the city, there’s a need for us to not just main­tain the in­fra­struc­ture we have but to build new in­fra­struc­ture. We wel­come any in­vest­ments in the city.”

Min­is­ter of Works and In­fra­struc­ture Jear­lean John, who al­so toured the cap­i­tal this week, praised the col­lab­o­ra­tion and promised the Gov­ern­ment’s full sup­port.

“We can­not af­ford to treat flood­ing as a sea­son­al in­con­ve­nience,” John said.

“It is a na­tion­al prob­lem and we must re­spond with ur­gency. The Drainage Di­vi­sion will be sup­port­ing the may­or and his team to en­sure flood­gates are op­er­a­tional, drains are cleared, and long-term in­fra­struc­ture up­grades are pri­ori­tised.”

May­or Al­leyne con­firmed that he was will­ing to work with stake­hold­ers, and the min­istry is one of them.

The may­or al­so re­vealed that drainage up­grades are be­ing ex­e­cut­ed un­der the Pub­lic Sec­tor In­vest­ment Pro­gramme.

“From time to time, there are parts of the in­fra­struc­ture that need re­me­di­al work,” he said.

“We have staff work­ing on that every sin­gle day. The coun­cil is press­ing ahead with im­prov­ing our drainage in­fra­struc­ture and road in­fra­struc­ture. We are do­ing the main­te­nance and re­cur­rent works nec­es­sary to bring some re­lief to the sit­u­a­tion we are cur­rent­ly ex­pe­ri­enc­ing.”

Al­leyne ac­knowl­edged the frus­tra­tion of res­i­dents whose homes were in­un­dat­ed by flood­wa­ters just two weeks in­to the new school term.

“The Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit will be first re­spon­ders. They work with the po­lice, the fire ser­vice, and oth­er agen­cies to bring im­me­di­ate re­lief. Long-term re­lief is the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and oth­er agen­cies. Our team is here, and we are con­tin­u­ing to do the work,” he said.