Like many res­i­dents in Aranguez and en­vi­rons, Vin­da Bachan and his fam­i­ly are thank­ful that the Gov­ern­ment has been at­tempt­ing to al­le­vi­ate flood­ing and ero­sion in the area.

In Sep­tem­ber 2019 ap­prox­i­mate­ly 350 acres of cul­ti­vat­ed land were sub­merged by flood­wa­ters and farm­ers lost their crops.

To avoid a re­cur­rence, in Oc­to­ber last year the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port Drainage Di­vi­sion start­ed con­struc­tion of re­tain­ing walls in the San Juan Riv­er.

The com­plet­ed works should have pre­vent­ed thou­sands of res­i­dents from be­ing flood­ed again, in­stead, it is af­fect­ing the Bachan Fam­i­ly now.

Ac­cord­ing to Bachan, 65, the min­istry asked for per­mis­sion to re­move his fence and push back a garage that was on his prop­er­ty, some­thing he agreed to. He said though the min­istry took it too far.

“They dig more than where they ask to come, they dam­age all here right, my co­conut tree was stand­ing they dig right around it next thing it fall and when it fall I would be at a lost be­cause I does get the co­conuts,” he ex­plained.

The pen­sion­er told Guardian Me­dia that he lost his leg in No­vem­ber last year and can­not stay at home be­cause the wheel­chair is un­able to en­ter the space left by the min­istry for him to en­ter his yard.

“I had to turn back one day be­cause no­body was here and the con­di­tion of here I had to turn back, “he said

“Yes­ter­day the wheel stick up and they had to come and pull it, “he con­tin­ued.

Bachan said if he knew this would be the out­come he would not have giv­en the min­istry per­mis­sion.

Garage own­er Aaron Williams shared the same view.

He said the min­istry broke its promise to com­plete the project in a time­ly man­ner. He said no cars have been able to dri­ve in­to the garage leav­ing him out of a job for months.

“Now is al­most three months...I can­not func­tion, “he said.

The Au­to Air-Con­di­tion tech­ni­cian said he has a fam­i­ly to main­tain and they have been strug­gling since works be­gan. He said they catered for a small in­con­ve­nience but not months out of work.

“I am out of an in­come, I have three chil­dren, I have a wife, I have bills to pay is COVID time. Christ­mas now pass they ain’t even self drop a ham­per or call or see how you do­ing or give an up­date,” Williams said.

He said fam­i­ly and odd jobs are keep­ing afloat at the mo­ment and the on­ly feed­back he got from the min­istry was that the mat­ter was un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“I my­self I con­fused, I don’t know if this is a mur­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion or what,” he said sar­cas­ti­cal­ly.

Guardian Me­dia spoke with the di­rec­tor of the Drain Di­vi­sion at the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port Paula Web­ber who said they are still await­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion from Bachan for bound­aries of his prop­er­ty.

“What the en­gi­neer at the cor­po­ra­tion in­formed me is that the shed is on a road re­serve,” she said.

She said some res­i­dents from the area high­light­ed this is­sue and the Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion ad­vised them that the shed can­not go back where it orig­i­nal­ly was, how­ev­er, she is await­ing a re­port.

Web­ber said she sym­pa­this­es with Bachan and his fam­i­ly and will have su­per­vi­sors vis­it the scene.

Works on the riv­er are set to be com­plet­ed soon.