GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

While the Gov­ern­ment has been praised for its ef­forts in putting mea­sures in place to mit­i­gate the ef­fects of Hur­ri­cane Beryl, more could have been done re­gard­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion and prepara­to­ry work.

This from Bal­dath Ma­haraj, pres­i­dent, Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (CCIC), as well as the Fyz­abad Cham­ber of Com­merce.

Based on con­stant com­mu­ni­ca­tion with mem­bers, the Fyz­abad Cham­ber of Com­merce told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day it was pleased with the Gov­ern­ment’s ap­proach in its ad­vi­sories and up­dates.

How­ev­er, it said prepa­ra­tion for this kind of ac­tiv­i­ty “is much to be de­sired.”

“Prepa­ra­tion means that Gov­ern­ment agen­cies re­spon­si­ble for man­ag­ing ac­tiv­i­ties of land de­vel­op­ment, drainage, road in­fra­struc­ture and oth­er con­struc­tion must be mon­i­tored to pre­vent the im­pact from the changes of the weath­er pat­terns we are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing,” the south­ern busi­ness group said.

It added that many of the com­mu­ni­ties around Fyz­abad suf­fer from flood­ing dur­ing “nor­mal show­ers, nev­er mind ex­ces­sive.

“The ques­tion is when will the Gov­ern­ment en­force the rules and laws and do the work to man­age the dan­gers and suf­fer­ing caused by flood­ing and the loss of cit­i­zens’ liveli­hood and pre­vent the ef­fects of dis­eases that can come af­ter these changes in weath­er pat­terns that are get­ting worse year­ly?” the cham­ber asked.

Fur­ther, it said there is a need for con­stant land de­vel­op­ment, urg­ing that the agen­cies re­spon­si­ble must work to­geth­er to en­sure the pres­sure placed on the agri­cul­ture sec­tor is min­i­malised as well as lit­tle im­pact on cit­i­zens’ homes and oth­er prop­er­ties when these dis­rup­tions oc­cur.

“As a small de­vel­op­ing na­tion, we must be­gin to be proac­tive and not re­ac­tive,” the cham­ber urged.

Mean­while, Bal­dath Ma­haraj, Pres­i­dent, Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (CCIC) said it is aware work is ac­tive­ly be­ing done in main­tain­ing and clear­ing wa­ter­cours­es, which is cru­cial to pre­vent flood­ing and en­sur­ing prop­er wa­ter flow.

He added the bor­ough has made sand­bags avail­able at con­ve­nient lo­ca­tions to as­sist res­i­dents, not­ing that based on on­go­ing dis­cus­sion with the may­or, the bor­ough was do­ing all it could with a lim­it­ed bud­get.

How­ev­er, Ma­haraj said there seems to be a need for bet­ter com­mu­ni­ca­tion from the Gov­ern­ment to keep res­i­dents in­formed about on­go­ing and fu­ture clear­ing of drains etc.

“With the rainy sea­son, veg­e­ta­tion is grow­ing rapid­ly along the wa­ter cours­es and there is a need for reg­u­lar main­te­nance,” he sug­gest­ed, adding that the cham­ber will con­tin­ue dis­cus­sions with the au­thor­i­ties to en­sure the bor­ough is in a state of readi­ness for the hur­ri­cane sea­son.

How­ev­er, Greater Tu­na­puna Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce pres­i­dent Ra­mon Gre­go­rio gave the Gov­ern­ment full cred­it for its han­dling of the ad­verse weath­er re­port­ing and man­age­ment. He praised the con­stant up­dates via tra­di­tion­al and so­cial me­dia plat­forms as well as shar­ing of bul­letins and up­dates via var­i­ous mes­sag­ing plat­forms.

“The Gov­ern­ment’s re­sponse al­so in­clud­ed height­ened pub­lic aware­ness and prepa­ra­tion cam­paigns via em­pha­sis on the im­por­tance of com­mu­ni­ty pre­pared­ness, en­cour­ag­ing res­i­dents to se­cure their prop­er­ties and hav­ing emer­gency sup­plies ready.

“Since the T&T Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice is­sued a red-lev­el hur­ri­cane warn­ing for To­ba­go and an or­ange-lev­el trop­i­cal storm warn­ing for Trinidad, these warn­ings have prompt­ed the ac­ti­va­tion of the Na­tion­al Emer­gency Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre (NEOC) to co­or­di­nate the dis­as­ter re­sponse ef­forts which have yield­ed great suc­cess in re­al-time man­age­ment of the is­sues as they arose,” Gre­go­rio said.

He added that giv­en the fore­cast of an above-av­er­age hur­ri­cane sea­son, with an ex­pect­ed in­crease in the num­ber of named storms and hur­ri­canes, the GT­CIC was pleased the Gov­ern­ment has re­in­forced its dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness and re­sponse strate­gies.

Pres­i­dent of the Greater San Fer­nan­do Area Cham­ber of Com­merce Ki­ran Singh was al­so in high praise for the Gov­ern­ment’s re­ac­tion to the weath­er event, stat­ing that, through the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment and the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port, a com­mend­able job has been down thus far.

He not­ed the dis­sem­i­na­tion of in­for­ma­tion via so­cial and main­stream me­dia was com­pre­hen­sive­ly ex­e­cut­ed as well as fa­cil­i­ties for af­fect­ed peo­ple were al­so pre­pared in ad­vance.

Fur­ther, Singh said sand­bag dis­tri­b­u­tion cen­tres and shel­ters were ad­e­quate­ly ad­ver­tised, adding that schools were giv­en suf­fi­cient no­tice of clo­sure.