Raphael John-Lall

Flood­ing is the most im­me­di­ate prob­lems to be tack­led dur­ing the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB) four pro­gramme loan with the T&T Gov­ern­ment, Michelle Cross-Fen­ty, IDB coun­try rep­re­sen­ta­tive, said yes­ter­day."Dur­ing my time here in T&T, I have wit­nessed first hand how flood­ing con­tin­ues to im­pact the lives of the pop­u­la­tion, not to men­tion how time and time again it crip­ples mo­bil­i­ty in down­town Port-of-Spain,' said Cross-Fen­ty, who said the plan is to re­duce the risk of flood­ing and up­grade ex­ist­ing drain chan­nels. The sign­ing of the loan agree­ments took place at the Min­istry of Plan­ning, Er­ic Williams Fi­nan­cial Com­plex, Port-of-Spain. The loans, ap­proved late last year by the IDB, in­clude US$120 mil­lion for flood al­le­vi­a­tion in Port-of-Spain: US$120 mil­lion; US$20 mil­lion for Fi­nance Strength­ened In­for­ma­tion Man­age­ment at the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al's De­part­ment; a USS18 mil­lion Glob­al Ser­vices Pro­mo­tion Pro­gramme; and the Project Prepa­ra­tion and Ex­e­cu­tion Fa­cil­i­ty (PROPEF) for a pro­posed Health Ser­vices Sup­port Pro­gramme (HSSP) for US$1.5 mil­lion.

Gan­ga Singh, Min­is­ter of the En­vi­ron­ment and Wa­ter Re­sources, who at­tend­ed the sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny, said one of the caus­es of flood­ing in Port-of-Spain is that em­ploy­ees of the City Cor­po­ra­tion push garbage in­to drains which clogs them.He added that un­der the terms of the loan agree­ment, the drainage will be com­plet­ed in five years.Singh added that the drains in the city have been that way since T&T's colo­nial days and not much has been done since then to solve the flood­ing prob­lem. "In 2014, we are en­gag­ing in that ex­er­cise. It is a willare to fund T&T's de­vel­op­ment and help stem so­ci­etal prob­lems."We must get the drugs and the crime un­der con­trol be­cause we want peace, pros­per­i­ty, har­mo­ny and sus­tain­able progress. We are on the right track and once we deal with these scourges, we will even­tu­al­ly get to our par­adise at a faster rate," he said.