Tancoo: Gov’t must deal with drainage issues in Oropouche West
“Use the brief period left between storms to urgently address the drainage issues in Oropouche West.” This was the plea of the frustrated and irate Oropouche West MP Davendranath Tancoo, who complained that for the last four years he has been begging both the Minister of Works & Transport and the Minister of Rural Development & Local Government to perform critical maintenance works in his constituency, but his pleas have fallen on deaf ears.
Tancoo says that urgent works must immediately be done, such as clearing water courses, digging retention ponds, dredging and cleaning rivers, and building-up the river banks so that the thousands of residents of Woodland and San Francique, Gopie Trace, Suchit Trace, Ramjattan Trace, Tulsa Trace and many other flood prone areas would not have to experience the repeated trauma of having their homes, livestock, vehicles and agricultural produce overrun and destroyed by floods.
“These PNM Ministers don’t even bother to pay lip service any more. These communities continue to be treated like bastard children of a hated parentage”, said the very upset Oropouche West MP. Stating that the Ministers are aware of the problem and the solutions but still refuse to act, Tancoo noted that hundreds of millions of dollars have been received by this Government from the Latin American Bank, C.A.F to treat with flood alleviation, yet the only thing the Government has done was to tell people to “expect flooding”. “This is the same PNM Government whose Ministers referred to flood-stricken residents of South Trinidad as “alligators in a murky lagoon” and habitually deny affected residents adequate and timely access to flood relief grants.”
MP Tancoo said, “I am happy when I see citizens in other parts of the country get immediate response from the government when their communities flood. I wonder, though, why South Trinidad continues to be ignored when this is where the perennial problem exists? Is it because we have not engaged in destructive protest actions that our concerns are being ignored? And then you want to charge these flooded communities Property Tax based on a fictitious rent assessment? These same communities have been without water for weeks and all we get from Ministers is dead silence. No Government should practice geographic discrimination against its citizens.”
The Oropouche West MP noted that the passage of hurricane Beryl was a warning to the country of what is likely to come our way in the next few months. “I call on Ministers Sinanan and Al Rawi to stop playing games with the lives of residents. The country does not want your fake concern on TV when disaster hits, nor do we want millions to be handed out without process to PNM contractors for emergency works after the fact. What we want is for these PNM Ministers to stop the political hate, to remember their oath of office and pay urgent attention to address these critical drainage issues.”