KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen says flood mit­i­ga­tion ef­forts have been un­der­way for months, fol­low­ing con­cerns raised by res­i­dents in sev­er­al flood-prone com­mu­ni­ties who fear not enough has been done to pre­vent an­oth­er ma­jor flood­ing event.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia in San Juan yes­ter­day, Ameen said the Gov­ern­ment’s an­nu­al flood mit­i­ga­tion pro­gramme be­gan on May 1.

“On the first of May, we start­ed our flood mit­i­ga­tion pro­gramme. That in­cludes clear­ing wa­ter­cours­es that lead to these ma­jor rivers. The Min­istry of Works is strength­en­ing river­banks, re­mov­ing grass and oth­er de­bris that block wa­ter­cours­es, and re­pair­ing flood­gates so that wa­ter does not flow back in­to com­mu­ni­ties. We do have a pro­gramme go­ing on. Of course, we still have more work to do,” she said.

Her com­ments came one day af­ter res­i­dents of com­mu­ni­ties, in­clud­ing Ca­roni, St He­le­na and Kel­ly Vil­lage, told Guardian Me­dia they re­mained con­cerned about in­com­plete riv­er dredg­ing, blocked drains and flood­gates they be­lieve re­quire ur­gent at­ten­tion be­fore pe­ri­ods of heavy rain­fall.

Many res­i­dents said that while some work has been car­ried out, more needs to be done in ar­eas that are re­peat­ed­ly af­fect­ed when­ev­er rivers over­flow.

Ameen ac­knowl­edged that flood mit­i­ga­tion works are still on­go­ing but said the pro­gramme is fo­cused on im­prov­ing wa­ter flow, strength­en­ing river­banks and re­pair­ing crit­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture to re­duce the im­pact of flood­ing.

As the rainy sea­son con­tin­ues, res­i­dents said they will be watch­ing close­ly to see whether the work now un­der­way pro­vides the pro­tec­tion they have long been call­ing for.