RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Pe­nal busi­ness­man Gan­garam Nar­ine who is ac­cused of back­fill­ing on a riv­er re­serve near his mil­lion-dol­lar man­sion says he is not re­spon­si­ble for any flood­ing in the Oropouche Basin.

The busi­ness­man came un­der fire from sev­er­al res­i­dents and the head of the South Oropouche River­ine and Flood Ac­tion group Ed­ward Mood­ie on Wednes­day af­ter it was found that he had in­trud­ed on the riv­er re­serve.

On Fri­day, Nar­ine took Guardian Me­dia on his prop­er­ty to show the back­fill­ing works in a bid to clear his name. Show­ing off a cadas­tral map, Nar­ine said he owned al­most 10 acres of land bor­der­ing off Rail­way Road, Su­chit Trace and Suer­adge Traces, Pe­nal. 

The riv­er runs through his prop­er­ty. How­ev­er, an in­com­plete fence and a 40-feet con­tain­er were seen on the riv­er re­serve. Nar­ine said this area had been sur­veyed twice by his pri­vate sur­vey­ors as well as by the Min­istry of Works Drainage Di­vi­sion.

When told that the con­crete fence posts and the con­tain­er were on the riv­er re­serve and that the back­fill­ing works had been done on the riv­er re­serve, Nar­ine said: "That is tem­po­rary. We are not build­ing a struc­ture. We are not pil­ing. We could pull out those poles any­time," he ex­claimed.

 He ex­plained that he was mere­ly rais­ing the banks of the riv­er to pro­tect his prop­er­ty.

Told that the back­fill­ing was be­ing done at the ex­pense of sur­round­ing res­i­dents and vil­lagers, Nar­ine said this was not the case. 

"When I came in here to build, I had to clean the riv­er my­self. There are sev­er­al places where the riv­er has not been cleaned. If you look here you will see all kinds of tyres and trees grow­ing in­side the riv­er. This is what is caus­ing the floods," Nar­ine said.

He added, "I am fill­ing up my land. The riv­er re­serve bounce to my land. I'm not block­ing and pil­ing. I must clean the place be­hind my house. "

He said he had of­fered to clean the rivers him­self but when asked if he was an en­gi­neer, he re­spond­ed, " I don’t see any en­gi­neer­ing in this."

He added that he had of­fered his ex­ca­va­tor and oth­er equip­ment free of charge to the State so that the rivers could be cleaned. 

"I don't mind if they send an en­gi­neer and they use my equip­ment to clean the riv­er. They are free to come through my prop­er­ty to clean the riv­er," he added.

Nar­ine then took the Guardian to Rail­way Road where he said squat­ters had built their homes across a trib­u­tary, there­by con­tribut­ing to the floods.

The mas­sive wall sur­round­ing his man­sion was built over the ex­ist­ing wa­ter­course but Nar­ine said there were prop­er cylin­ders be­low and fil­ters to block out any block­age.

Near to his land, the wa­ter­course was clogged and stag­nat­ing. It flowed di­rect­ly un­der the home of squat­ters liv­ing along Rail­way Line.

Mean­while, of­fi­cials at the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty con­firmed yes­ter­day that they were look­ing in­to the back­fill­ing works that Nar­ine was do­ing.

An ap­pli­ca­tion for a Cer­tifi­cate of Com­fort had been made in Sep­tem­ber 2019 to the EMA for the es­tab­lish­ment of fruit and veg­etable farm on 2.2 hectares of land in­clu­sive of clear­ing, land­fill­ing and es­tab­lish­ment of sur­face wa­ter im­pound­ments.

Chair­man of the Cor­po­ra­tion Dr Allen Sam­my said the PDRC had an on­go­ing mat­ter with Nar­ine for sev­er­al vi­o­la­tions.

Min­is­ter of Works Ro­han Sinanan said the Drainage Di­vi­sion will be in­ves­ti­gat­ing the com­plaints made against Nar­ine.