Shas­tri Boodan

May­or Faaiq Mo­hammed says the per­sis­tent flood­ing chal­lenges plagu­ing the Bor­ough of Ch­agua­nas are the re­sult of years of in­fra­struc­tur­al ne­glect and can­not be re­solved overnight.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view on Sat­ur­day, May­or Mo­hammed point­ed to the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion, ac­cus­ing it of fail­ing to in­vest in crit­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture and ne­glect­ing reg­u­lar main­te­nance of the bor­ough’s drainage sys­tems.

“The flood­ing and drainage is­sues we face to­day were not on­ly fore­see­able but, sad­ly, in­evitable,” Mo­hammed said. “Years of un­der­in­vest­ment and a lack of con­sis­tent up­keep have left many com­mu­ni­ties vul­ner­a­ble to even mod­er­ate rain­fall.”

He added that the bor­ough’s Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit (DMU) re­mains on high alert, mon­i­tor­ing weath­er con­di­tions and prepar­ing sand­bags for dis­tri­b­u­tion to res­i­dents in flood-prone ar­eas.

“Un­like our pre­de­ces­sors, this gov­ern­ment is not wait­ing idly by for dis­as­ter to strike,” the may­or not­ed.

Mo­hammed al­so high­light­ed re­cent in­ter­ven­tion by Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen, who launched a ma­jor flood mit­i­ga­tion ini­tia­tive last week. 

The pro­gramme in­cludes the clear­ing of key drains, de­silt­ing of wa­ter­cours­es, in­fra­struc­ture up­grades, and the im­ple­men­ta­tion of long-term so­lu­tions for high-risk com­mu­ni­ties.

“This crit­i­cal ex­er­cise sig­nals our com­mit­ment to not on­ly re­spond­ing to flood­ing but pre­vent­ing it where pos­si­ble,” he said. “The work will not stop un­til we build re­silience in­to every vul­ner­a­ble cor­ner of our com­mu­ni­ties.”

The may­or urged res­i­dents to re­main vig­i­lant, heed ad­vi­sories from lo­cal au­thor­i­ties, and take all nec­es­sary pre­cau­tions to pro­tect life and prop­er­ty.

Mean­while, Coun­cil­lor for Char­lieville Adri­an Ali re­port­ed that Ak­bar Trace be­came im­pass­able around mid­day due to se­vere flood­ing. Mo­torists were ad­vised to seek al­ter­na­tive routes as emer­gency re­spon­ders mon­i­tored the sit­u­a­tion.