Unhappy Kamla writes PM over $1.2M for flooding

UNHAPPY with Government’s $1.2 million offer to the Penal/Debe Regional Corporation to deal with perennial flooding in areas including Penal, Debe and Barrackpore, Siparia MP Kamla Persad Bissessar has written to the Prime Minister expressing her disappointment with the sum. Persad-Bissessar, a former attorney-general and education minister in the then UNC Government, had expressed her hope that the Prime Minister would deal swiftly and efficiently to arrest the suffering experienced by residents in those flood hit areas following his tour in mid-November.

“Shortly after your visit and with hopes buoyed by your promises to provide Government’s assistance to the victims, the Chairman and officials of the Penal/Debe Regional Corporation together with the members of Parliament for Siparia and Oropouche undertook a realistic and somewhat conservative assessment,” stated her letter to the PM, which was dated December 13. “We arrived at an estimated cost of both short term remedies and long term preventative measures. This conservative figure of $15.445 million was communicated to your office,” the letter continued. The letter added that at a meeting held on December 8, of senior Government officials chaired by Manning’s Permanent Secretary, certain recommendations including the repairs to wooden bridges, building of retaining walls and repairing collapsed box drains, “were struck off.”

As a result of the amendments to remedial recommendations,  Persad-Bissessar lamented, the estimate of $15.445 million was slashed down to $1.2 million. “Also the request for funding to rent 20 backhoes and trucks to deal with removal of silt from the rivers was turned down and the inadequate ten vehicles were approved.” Persad-Bissessar then wrote that both she and the Chairman of the regional corporation felt “not favoured” according to “the principles of equity which should inform Government’s allocation of resources for victims of natural disasters.” She then called on the Prime Minister to make good on his public promises made during his tour to the people of the flood-affected areas for immediate and tangible relief. On Monday, a release from the Ministry of Local Government stated that Minister Rennie Dumas would approach Cabinet for approval of the $1.2 million funding for remedial works.