Gail Alexan­der

The Gov­ern­ment yes­ter­day agreed to make avail­able 50 mil­lion for flood re­lief to farm­ers and cit­i­zens af­fect­ed by the re­cent flood­ing dis­as­ters, plus 100 mil­lion for land­slide and road re­in­state­ment work.

Among the fund­ing, the Gov­ern­ment has al­lo­cat­ed an im­me­di­ate $40 mil­lion to the Na­tion­al Flood Re­lief Pro­gramme.

This was an­nounced by the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter (OPM) fol­low­ing Thurs­day’s Cab­i­net meet­ing.

Res­i­dents in ar­eas across T&T – from North to South – were af­fect­ed by rains which be­gan last Fri­day and con­tin­ued in­to Mon­day. Wa­ter re­ced­ed, but El So­cor­ro, Bam­boo and Man­zanil­la were said to still be af­fect­ed up to yes­ter­day.

The Gov­ern­ment had close­ly mon­i­tored the weath­er sit­u­a­tion as it de­scend­ed on T&T last week­end, warn­ing of ar­riv­ing as­pects and ef­fects.

The OPM had stat­ed that all arms and agen­cies of the State were ful­ly mo­bilised and on alert un­der Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s in­struc­tion and un­der the mon­i­tor­ing guid­ance of a min­is­te­r­i­al team in­volv­ing Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, Works and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty.

Yes­ter­day, the OPM stat­ed that fol­low­ing yes­ter­day’s Cab­i­net meet­ing and dis­cus­sions with the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, a de­ci­sion was tak­en to al­lo­cate an im­me­di­ate $40 mil­lion to the Na­tion­al Flood Re­lief Pro­gramme.

The OPM stat­ed, “These funds are to aug­ment ex­ist­ing bud­getary al­lo­ca­tions in rel­e­vant min­istries to pro­vide sus­te­nance and com­fort for those di­rect­ly dis­tressed by the re­cent weath­er emer­gency.

“Ad­di­tion­al­ly, a fur­ther $100 mil­lion al­lo­ca­tion has been made for ur­gent land­slide and road re­in­state­ment works na­tion­wide.”

“Ten mil­lion dol­lars ($10 mil­lion) will al­so be made avail­able to as­sist the farm­ing com­mu­ni­ty that has been ad­verse­ly af­fect­ed by the re­cent flood­ing,” the OPM added.

A num­ber of farm­ers last night queried when and how the $10 mil­lion would be made avail­able to those who need as­sis­tance.

Nei­ther the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Min­is­ter nor oth­er min­is­ters an­swered Guardian Me­dia calls and queries to shed light on when the monies for flood re­lief and the farm­ing com­mu­ni­ty would be re­leased, how—via what fa­cil­i­ty or mech­a­nism— and whether as grants.

Nor did any­one say when work would be­gin on the land­slides and roads for which the $100 mil­lion was al­lo­cat­ed, or who the work would be done by, in­clud­ing whether the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment’s Sec­ondary Roads Com­pa­ny or the Works’ Min­istry’s Pro­gramme for Up­grad­ing Roads Ef­fi­cien­cy (PURE) would be in­volved in such ex­er­cis­es.

Works and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ters Ro­han Sinanan and Faris Al-Rawi didn’t an­swer queries yes­ter­day on the em­bank­ment breach at Bam­boo #2 and if law is be­ing ex­am­ined to deal with that, or what oth­er reme­dies are be­ing adopt­ed there since more rains are ex­pect­ed ahead.

Sinanan on Tues­day in­di­cat­ed the breach is pos­ing a ma­jor chal­lenge “be­cause if in­for­ma­tion in­com­ing is clear, there may be some rise in the riv­er lev­els again.”

An un­of­fi­cial source, who claimed a pump was sent to Bam­boo, “ex­pect­ed” the em­bank­ment is­sue “may be dealt with” via some flood re­lief fund­ing.

Mooni­lal: Too lit­tle too late!

The Op­po­si­tion UNC mean­while heaped scorn on the Row­ley Gov­ern­ment’s re­lief fund­ing.

UNC MP Roodal Mooni­lal said in a state­ment, “The Gov­ern­ment has failed mis­er­ably to re­spond to the ur­gent needs of the peo­ple. This is too lit­tle, too late!

“This mon­ey will be cor­rupt­ed away and giv­en out on the ba­sis of dis­crim­i­na­tion and po­lit­i­cal favouritism rather than need and equal­i­ty. This mea­gre and pal­try sum will not as­sist to re­pair or re­ha­bil­i­tate the road­ways that have been dev­as­tat­ed as a re­sult of ne­glect. Their track record is known, as is their in­com­pe­tence.”

He claimed, “Hav­ing re­sources means noth­ing.

In the 2022 Bud­get, funds were al­lo­cat­ed to re­pair roads and clean rivers—they did not use it, pre­fer­ring to spend $277 mil­lion on cas­tles and a house for the Prime Min­is­ter. This is why their min­is­ters have to stay in the air and can­not walk the ground from Bam­boo to Beetham!”