Ministry of Works response to potential flooding disaster is disingenuous and disgraceful
Yesterday morning (April 6th 2022), residents of La Paille Village in Caroni staged a peaceful protest to demand that action be taken to fix the embankment along the Caroni River. The embankment is in such a deteriorated condition, it now poses a serious and deadly threat to hundreds of homes and businesses should a serious flood hit.
The response to the plight of these residents in a press release by the Ministry of Works and Transport (MOWT) is nothing short of disingenuous and disgraceful.
The MOWT blames its failure to repair the embankment on the engineering process, while also admitting they have done absolutely nothing to fix the problem, despite knowing about it for the past 5 years. The residents have not let them forget – year after year they have pleaded and begged for assistance for this very problem.
Quite shamefully the MOWT also attempts to blame the residents of La Paille Village themselves by saying one resident prevented the MOWT staff from accessing the embankment via his property. What the MOWT fails to state is that that particular resident was initially afraid of having the structures on his property demolished to facilitate the MOWT’s accessing the riverbank. However, the said resident has since then expressed a willingness to work with the MOWT to facilitate access and has been requesting a meeting with MOWT officials for the past year with no reply.
It is clear to me that the MOWT and Minister Rohan Sinanan have no concern that if the Caroni River bursts its bank this rainy season, it will cause a catastrophic flood that will affect all of Caroni, and possibly even thousands of persons out of the area.
I am pleading with Minister Sinanan and the MOWT to stop making empty promises in respect to obvious priority areas. Residents of Caroni are also taxpaying citizens of Trinidad and Tobago and deserve to be treated fairly.
I also wish to repeat what I said yesterday, that if the MOWT does not immediately begin to rectify this issue, drastic measures will be taken to ensure that the voice of the residents of La Paille Village be heard.
MOWT has indicated that works are expected to commence in one month. We will not stand for this ‘mamaguy’. On behalf of the people, I am not prepared to accept that very late in the dry season, the Ministry of Works simply parks-up a caterpillar at the subject area, allows the rainy season to start and then say that no further works can be undertaken.
Dinesh RAMBAlly
Member of Parliament for Chaguanas West