Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Cunu­pia vil­lagers want a wall that was built in the Cunu­pia Riv­er re­moved.

The vil­lagers yes­ter­day told Guardian Me­dia that the riv­er was just over 25 feet in width but the con­struc­tion of this wall, which oc­curred ap­prox­i­mate­ly five years ago, has nar­rowed it to just five feet in the area in ques­tion.

How­ev­er, a prob­lem aris­es when it rains since the wa­ter in the riv­er backs up at that point, caus­ing flood­ing.

In fact, that was the sit­u­a­tion this week when all the com­mu­ni­ties bor­der­ing the riv­er on the South­ern Main Road east of the wall were hit by dev­as­tat­ing floods.

The res­i­dents said while it had been a prob­lem be­fore, the flood­ing this week was the worst they had seen since the wall was con­struct­ed.

Vil­lagers at Chin Chin Road, Mon Pla­sair Road and en­vi­rons along the river­bank ad­mit­ted to see­ing an in­creased lev­el of flood­ing.

Vil­lager Gan­garam Ma­hadeo told Guardian Me­dia, “I have lived in Cunu­pia all my life and since this con­struc­tion, we have seen wa­ter lev­els that are now en­ter­ing the homes of many vil­lagers on the East­ern side of the Cunu­pia Riv­er, we are see­ing homes in Hink­son Trace, Bonne Aven­ture and the ar­eas be­yond where the riv­er bot­tle­necks with the wall are af­fect­ed every time it rains.”

He added, “The wa­ter is back­ing up here and this is cre­at­ing a bot­tle­neck. In past times we had floods but not like this and in the last five years it has got­ten sig­nif­i­cant­ly more chal­leng­ing and we be­lieve this bot­tle­neck is the main rea­son for many suf­fer­ing.

“I can’t un­der­stand how the au­thor­i­ties can al­low a 25-feet riv­er to be­come a 5-feet bot­tle­neck and the wa­ter is now back­ing up in­to peo­ple’s homes and we want the Min­is­ter of Work and Trans­port to come and see what is hap­pen­ing. The man who built this wall does not care about no­body but him­self, this is mad­ness and it can­not con­tin­ue like this.”

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that al­though the riv­er does not fall un­der the Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion, the cor­po­ra­tion has been writ­ing let­ters to the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port and the al­leged own­er urg­ing that the wall be de­mol­ished.

Vil­lagers claimed to be un­cer­tain whether the wall was pri­vate­ly built or gov­ern­ment sanc­tioned. As the riv­er al­so needs clear­ing, the vil­lagers want to know why there is no ac­cess as well.

Vil­lager and busi­ness own­er Ren­nie Ram­bahrat said, “The riv­er sup­posed to be at least 15 to 25 feet and it sup­posed to have ac­cess for equip­ment to pass to clean the riv­er cours­es. I don’t know what the au­thor­i­ties are gonna do or how they’re gonna you know, put it to­geth­er.”

Ram­abarat said he suf­fered loss­es for the third time this year ear­li­er this week and blames it on the nar­row­ing of the wa­ter­way and a lack of drainage.

Ch­agua­nas May­or Faaiq Mo­hammed and Cunu­pia coun­cil­lor Richard Sookdeo vis­it­ed the com­mu­ni­ty dur­ing the flood­ing.

Ac­knowl­edg­ing the prob­lem yes­ter­day, Mo­hammed said, “This nar­row­ing is af­fect­ing many burgess­es in the area and it does not fall un­der my purview but we have been ask­ing those in au­thor­i­ty to step in but it seems they are not will­ing and to leave many to suf­fer as flood­wa­ters come in­to their homes,” he said.

“Just look­ing at the riv­er you can see it plain­ly that this is af­fect­ing many.”

The cor­po­ra­tion re­port­ed that over 50 hous­es near the riv­er were af­fect­ed by the flood­ing this week.

Mo­hammed added, “We need the Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port to con­duct an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to this mat­ter be­cause this is af­fect­ing thou­sands.”

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands there is a process to look in­to the is­sue but it is un­clear what the next ac­tion will be.

Coun­cil­lor Sookdeo al­so called for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion and re­me­di­al work to com­mence at the point in ques­tion. Say­ing he knows it falls un­der the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port, he urged that im­me­di­ate ac­tion be tak­en due to the type of bad weath­er the coun­try has been ex­pe­ri­enc­ing in re­cent times.

Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to con­tact the busi­ness own­er where the wall is sit­u­at­ed, but calls to the busi­ness phone line went unan­swered. Calls to Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan al­so went unan­swered.

The vil­lagers are plan­ning protest ac­tion soon if no one in au­thor­i­ty looks in­to the mat­ter.