No culture of prevention

Even with watercourses cleared and dredged, some flooding will take place during periods of exceptionally heavy rainfall. However, in our circumstances, widespread flooding occurs even when there is moderate rainfall and of course there is absolute disaster and chaos in periods of torrential rainfall.

This situation is all too well known by the Drainage Division of the Ministry of Works but absolutely nothing is done to institute preventive or mitigating measures during the course of the dry season.

This neglect seems to be due primarily to an appalling indolence, lack of will and non-existent accountability and secondarily to a lack of resources. If there is one grossly non-functional department in the whole of the government administration, it must be the Drainage Division.

The political directorate is equally culpable including those at the local government level. Perhaps the recent disastrous and widespread flooding will propel the administration to take preventive measures seriously and direct investment to drainage infrastructure, flood control and mitigation.

I wish to relate my own experience.

I am particularly concerned about the constant flooding problem in the Debe district where my family home is situated. After the extensive flooding in the area in early August 2014, I approached the MP for the constituency, Dr Roodal Moonilal, who invited Ganga Singh, then minister responsible for water management, to look at the problem and take corrective action.

Incidentally, Singh has always been associated with some aspect of water — whether WASA, desalination or ground water. It is no wonder he carries the name Ganga.

This goodly minister came by helicopter to tour from the air, not to assess the problem on the ground. I pointed out to him that the main watercourse in the Debe district was the Cucharon River which was partly paved and that the paving needed to be continued to the Gandhi Village Road to enable a much faster run-off. In the meantime it was urgent to have the river cleaned and dredged.

I also mentioned the need to clear the secondary watercourses leading to the Cucharon River and the desilting of roadside drains which may necessitate the use of gully-suckers.

After the helicopter departed, it was the last I saw of or heard from Ganga Singh. There was absolutely no follow-up action.

In December 2015, I went to see the then Minister of Works, Fitzgerald Hinds, and made the same representation for the relief of flooding in Debe. Again there was a deafening silence and no response despite repeated requests.

One colleague of his even advised the residents of La Brea that there was need to light a fire under Hinds to get him to act.

From the comatose Hinds, we have moved to the self-acclaimed mover and shaker, Rohan Sinanan.

I saw him in December 2016 and pointed out the necessity to undertake urgent cleaning and dredging of the watercourses in the Debe area during the dry season of this year, pending the continuation of paving of the Cucharon River.

Again absolutely no action was forthcoming.

In the recent flooding of Debe post-Bret, I contacted the councillor for Debe West in the Penal Debe Regional Corporation, the chairman of the PDRC and a supervisor in the corporation. For the past three days no one from the PDRC has visited let alone organised any clean-up operations.

What we have had are numerous publicised tours, gallery photo sessions, grand announcements of mobilisation of resources and ritual promises of relief. All this theatre was subsequent to the disastrous flooding event which could either have been substantially avoided or its effects minimised by resolute preventive action.