Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Vol­un­teers and cor­po­rate cit­i­zens are join­ing hands with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in a mas­sive clean-up and beau­ti­fi­ca­tion cam­paign to al­le­vi­ate flood­ing across the coun­try. Dubbed the C&B Move­ment, the dri­ve was an­nounced yes­ter­day by Per­sad-Bisses­sar, as she toured her Siparia con­stituen­cy.

Since her ap­point­ment, sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ties in Pe­nal, Siparia, Debe and Bar­rack­pore have been ex­pe­ri­enc­ing heavy flood­ing. In an­tic­i­pa­tion of more of the same, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she has mo­bilised groups to as­sist with clean­ing up rivers, drains and ravines. She ex­plained that a Cab­i­net meet­ing was held and a call was made for cor­po­rate spon­sor­ship for the project.

"It is amaz­ing to see the num­ber of cit­i­zens who are do­nat­ing equip­ment, ma­chin­ery and their own time to be­gin this clean up. "It is need­ed at this time be­cause it will help with the flood­ing. It al­so places a lot more foot sol­diers in com­mu­ni­ties and this will serve as a de­ter­rent to fight crime," Per­sad-Biss­esar said. She added that her Gov­ern­ment will al­so part­ner with the De­fence Force and the po­lice to ar­rest crime. She not­ed that as the rainy sea­son con­tin­ues, a lot of ar­eas need to be cleaned. "The Min­is­ter of Works plus the en­gi­neer­ing corps of the De­fence Force as well as the Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment will high­light the ar­eas that are flood­ed and they will look at the plans and iden­ti­fy the pat­terns of flood­ing."

"Once this is done, they will iden­ti­fy the ar­eas tar­get­ed for cleanup. This will be done for the en­tire T&T." She not­ed that the C&B dri­ve is not just a Gov­ern­ment ef­fort but should be un­der­tak­en by all cit­i­zens.

"We want to ask every­one to C&B, clean up the cities and towns, the vil­lages. Get rid of all the rub­bish in your homes. We are go­ing to use the De­fence Force, Min­istry of Works, Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment and En­vi­ron­ment. I don't en­vi­sion this as sim­ply a Gov­ern­ment ef­fort. I am see­ing it as a na­tion­al ef­fort where each of us will clean out our com­mu­ni­ties," the Prime Min­is­ter said.

Re­gard­ing state­ments made by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an about the state of the Trea­sury, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said that her Gov­ern­ment will ful­fil all elec­tion promis­es. "We can ful­fil such promis­es in the short term but we will have to re-pri­ori­tise in the medi­um term. We have just about three months left in this fis­cal year and so we will have to iden­ti­fy fund­ing just for these three months and I be­lieve we can do that," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said. She added that there will be an ear­ly bud­get to re-pri­ori­tise for projects need­ed by the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty.