KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

When­ev­er the skies turn grey and thun­der rum­bles, burgess­es in the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (PDRC) get wor­ried. Some of them hur­ry to stack sand­bags in front of their doors, se­cure their ve­hi­cles and pets, and pray that the rain does not bring floods to wreak hav­oc on their lives and liveli­hoods.

As the Au­gust 14 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions (LGE) ap­proach­es, res­i­dents are hop­ing who­ev­er wins will fi­nal­ly work to al­le­vi­ate their main prob­lem—flood­ing.

The Pe­nal-Debe re­gion is ap­prox­i­mate­ly 247 square kilo­me­tres, of which 160 km is the South Oropouche Riv­er Basin. The Pa­pourie, South Oropouche, and Cu­ra­ma­ta rivers are the three main wa­ter­cours­es chan­nelling wa­ter from as far as Ma­yaro, Moru­ga and Princes Town to the Gulf of Paria.

PDRC da­ta sug­gest there are ap­prox­i­mate­ly 90,000 peo­ple of­fi­cial­ly liv­ing in the mu­nic­i­pal­i­ty, along with sev­er­al thou­sand mi­grants.

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) con­sid­ers this re­gion a fortress, un­de­feat­ed since the first elec­tions in 1992. How­ev­er, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty (PEP) are car­ry­ing out strong cam­paigns, hop­ing for an up­set.

Flood­ing with heavy rains

Many of the res­i­dents who spoke with Guardian Me­dia com­plained about the hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars they have lost in the past decade due to floods. Some built walls, in­stalled flood­gates and even filled in their lands. Res­i­dents in Pe­nal, Debe, Wood­land, San Fran­cique and Bar­rack­pore who can­not af­ford such al­ter­ations live sim­pler lives, re­fus­ing to buy items for their homes.

Gan­ga­daye Mooni­lal and her friends, who stood on the road­side chat­ting, said in Syne Vil­lage, Pe­nal, drainage prob­lems are con­tribut­ing to the flood­ing.

“The minute we have a heavy show­er the drains fill and the wa­ter spills on­to the road. The drainage is not quick, it is a slow process. It af­fects agri­cul­ture—the an­i­mals, the crops, the peo­ple, the road and every­thing,” she said.

Neenali Seemu­n­gal said the floods af­fect­ed Scott Road and Mendez Trace, wash­ing away the as­phalt in some parts.

Omar­dath Sookdeo was an­gry about the flood­ing along Mo­hess Road, Debe. Sookdeo said a busi­ness­man who al­tered the wa­ter­course was re­spon­si­ble for the floods. He said he ap­proached his rep­re­sen­ta­tive who told him the com­plaint need­ed to go to the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port’s (MOWT) Drainage Di­vi­sion.

“I said, ‘Well, okay, you are the coun­cil­lor. You are sup­posed to work with us for ac­tion.’ I nev­er got a re­sponse on that,” Sookdeo said.

A long-time sup­port­er of the UNC, Sookdeo went to Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Siparia con­stituen­cy of­fice to speak to some­one in charge but nev­er got a re­sponse. With this treat­ment, he now wants to give the PEP a chance.

Res­i­dents in Batchiya Vil­lage, San Fran­cique and Bar­rack­pore al­so com­plained about flood­ing and poor drainage but it was not all bad in Debe South where Nicholas Take­lal was grate­ful for the work done on the west­ern side of Mo­hess Road. Take­lal re­called ear­li­er times when wa­ter from Moru­ga and Bar­rack­pore set­tled in the com­mu­ni­ty for days. He no longer wor­ries about floods be­cause a wall was con­struct­ed a few years ago and re­cent drainage work ad­dressed the prob­lem.

PDRC chair­man Dr Allen Sam­my said there was no com­pre­hen­sive plan to ad­dress drainage prob­lems through­out the coun­try. He said every com­mu­ni­ty could en­gage in an en­vi­ron­men­tal au­dit of veg­e­ta­tion, peo­ple en­croach­ing on wa­ter­cours­es, back­filled lands and oth­er is­sues and the State could use that da­ta to ad­dress drainage de­fi­cien­cies.

“There is a prob­lem with drainage in Pe­nal-Debe, but the prob­lem is both man-made and nat­ur­al. I want to point out that many peo­ple like to say it is peo­ple who en­croached on wa­ter­cours­es and in­ter­fered. Yes, that is so, to some de­gree, but what about ar­eas where peo­ple do not live, and it floods?” he asked.

Sam­my said in­com­plete work on the wa­ter­course which was un­der the purview of the MOWT, was al­so to blame. While some peo­ple rec­om­mend­ed straight­en­ing and deep­en­ing the wa­ter­course to in­crease flow and ca­pac­i­ty, Sam­my said an­nu­al

said an­nu­al main­te­nance, start­ing with the rivers in the Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion and Ma­yaro/Rio Claro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion and end­ing at the riv­er mouths, is need­ed.

“There are 99 wa­ter­cours­es for which we are di­rect­ly re­spon­si­ble with­in the Pe­nal-Debe re­gion but the ma­jor wa­ter­cours­es are where the prob­lems are. It is not the tiny wa­ter­cours­es we are re­spon­si­ble for, and yes, they have in­ter­fered with some of those, but it is not the main con­trib­u­tor.”

Bad roads

Mo­torists have to dri­ve very slow­ly on Pa­pourie Road, Bar­rack­pore, be­cause hills slant­ed on one side and nar­row bridges have cre­at­ed a bot­tle­neck. Many of the roads in the re­gion have not been re­paired for years. Apart from the trench-like pot­holes, much of the road in­fra­struc­ture be­tween Debe and Bar­rack­pore, Pe­nal Rock Road, Her­mitage and Palmiste is erod­ing.

Seemu­n­gal, who lives on San­too Trace, off Scott Road, Pe­nal, ap­prox­i­mate­ly one mile in­to the for­est said as a sin­gle moth­er who gar­dens, the for­est is the on­ly place her fam­i­ly could af­ford to build their home.

“I main­tain the road and do every­thing like wack­er­ing be­cause it is a far dis­tance and is tough for us. It would be nice to get as­sis­tance with that and the road,” she said.

Fos­ter Pa­dia com­plained: “Where some peo­ple are liv­ing and with the bad roads, it is a prob­lem for them to get trans­porta­tion to get where they are liv­ing.”

He said when res­i­dents com­plain, they are told the PDRC is un­der-re­sourced.

“It is ei­ther they do not have mon­ey, equip­ment, or ma­te­r­i­al,” Pa­dia said.

Ac­cord­ing to Sam­my, road con­di­tions in the re­gion are no dif­fer­ent to the oth­er 13 mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions.

“When I talk about re­sources, peo­ple say Sam­my wants mon­ey again. I do not want mon­ey alone. I want ma­te­r­i­al. You have ma­te­r­i­al. We have the best pitch lake in the world. We have an ex­cel­lent set of ma­te­ri­als avail­able in the hills of Trinidad. Make it avail­able to us,” he said.

Wa­ter short­ages, crime and un­em­ploy­ment

Seemu­n­gal does not have a Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) con­nec­tion to her home and is grate­ful that the PDRC sends a wa­ter ten­der when­ev­er her fam­i­ly needs a sup­ply. The PDRC de­liv­ers wa­ter to many com­mu­ni­ties, fo­cus­ing on homes on hills or with­out a con­nec­tion.

There is a se­vere short­age of pipe-borne wa­ter in many ar­eas, in­clud­ing Pe­nal Rock Road, Syne Vil­lage, Clarke Road and Pe­nal Quinam Road.

An­oth­er ma­jor con­cern, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Debe and Bar­rack­pore, is the vi­o­lent home in­va­sions and rob­beries in re­cent months.

Oma­dath Ma­haraj said there is high un­em­ploy­ment in Bar­rack­pore West.

“Con­trac­tors are not get­ting big amounts of work to hire a vast amount of work­ers. You know they have their reg­u­lar work­ers work­ing with them,” he said.

Sam­my said the PDRC’s role was not pro­vid­ing em­ploy­ment but ad­dress­ing in­fra­struc­ture and re­sources. How­ev­er, many peo­ple are los­ing their jobs and go­ing to the PDRC in search of work.

He com­plained there was no con­cert­ed ef­fort to ad­dress un­em­ploy­ment and peo­ple are re­ly­ing on lo­cal gov­ern­ment to ad­dress is­sues that Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment should.

As it re­lates to crime, Sam­my said the re­moval of the Com­mu­ni­ty Com­fort Pa­trols meant less pro­tec­tion in the vil­lages.

“Un­less you can start to ad­dress it in a way, like put more street lights, re­pair those al­ready blown and have peo­ple go that way. There is a lot of so­cial me­dia now. Peo­ple have their watch groups where they com­mu­ni­cate via their so­cial me­dia. I, my­self, see what peo­ple are com­mu­ni­cat­ing.”

PDRC could have

done more

Many res­i­dents said while the PDRC ex­e­cut­ed its func­tions ad­e­quate­ly in the past three years, it could have done more. They be­lieve the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment starved the cor­po­ra­tion of re­sources.

Al­though Sookdeo wants to give the PEP a chance, he ad­mit­ted that the PDRC func­tioned with­out sig­nif­i­cant re­sources.

“They will do lit­tle work fix­ing roads, cut­ting grass, do­ing health work in the area, and clean­ing drains. Some­times they clean, some­times they do not have enough re­sources to clean right through and all that is the prob­lem,” he said.

Mooni­lal rat­ed the PDRC’s per­for­mance at 6/10: “The peo­ple are for them, and I think they are for the peo­ple, but they have cer­tain in­hi­bi­tions, and I know it is fi­nance. They do not have the mon­ey to do, but want to do.”

Seemu­n­gal felt the PDRC did well but need­ed to do more, while Take­lal gave it a pass­ing grade.

Res­i­dents be­lieve tra­di­tion­al vot­ing will de­ter­mine the out­come of the elec­tions in the PDRC.

Sam­my said res­i­dents want the coun­cil to ad­dress is­sues that are not with­in their re­mit, like patch­ing the SS Erin Road, which falls un­der the MOWT.

In ad­di­tion, the PDRC has been with­out a fi­nan­cial of­fi­cer, ac­coun­tant, AO2 and coun­ty su­per­in­ten­dent and there is on­ly so much a cor­po­ra­tion can do with lim­it­ed re­sources.

“I can un­der­stand some of the anger when we say to them it is not our do­ing and these are the rea­sons it is not good enough. If I were to rank what we have been able to do with the re­sources we have, the man­pow­er we have, the mon­ey we have, and the ma­chin­ery we have, I would say we have done 7/10. The pub­lic may see it much less than that.”

Sam­my ex­pects the PNM and PEP to get some votes but al­so ex­pects the UNC to re­tain all ten dis­tricts. He hopes to re­turn as chair­man.

“My am­bi­tion is to re­turn as an al­der­man to of­fer what­ev­er I can. Who­ev­er the par­ty choos­es as al­der­man is up to the par­ty or even as chair­man.”

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad pre­dicts the UNC will re­tain the PDRC. She the PNM and PEP a slim chance of get­ting rep­re­sen­ta­tives in the coun­cil.

She said es­ca­lat­ing crime is among the na­tion­al is­sues that could have reper­cus­sions on lo­cal gov­ern­ment.

“Any­thing neg­a­tive hap­pens in the coun­try, the peo­ple do not want to know which re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion is in charge, they blame the na­tion­al gov­ern­ment, which, as far as they are con­cerned is the ul­ti­mate source of pow­er,” she said

Ram­per­sad said the PNM did not tra­di­tion­al­ly fare well in the “UNC turf” and the PEP had not made sig­nif­i­cant in­roads.