Opposition Member of Parliament and former Minister of Public Infrastructure, David Patterson wants the Government to stop the blame game about the floods and spend more time setting up a national flood emergency committee, bringing together all stakeholders, including the Opposition to deal with what has become a major national problem.
All 10 of Guyana Administrative regions have reported flooded communities.
At an Opposition press conference, Mr. Patterson said the problem will not be fixed unless there is a collective effort to tackle the problem.
The Government has sought to blame the City Council and some other Councils across the country for not adequately having systems in place to guard against flooding.
But Patterson is of the view that the government’s focus now needs to be on getting all hands on board to address the disaster.
“We had a very good working system, that is something that can’t be disputed, that was something I know the Coalition was given credit for and what is happening is sad but we have regressed to a pre-2015 state in which you sit down and you blame someone else. Georgetown and Guyana are for all of us. Flooding affects every single one of us, all constituencies including those won by the APNU+AFC and constituencies won by the PPP/C. So, we call on the government to engaged stakeholders. Since August of 2020, there has been absolutely no engagements with the Opposition, not even to ask if we had any ideas or if we have any issues we can help to put forward to alleviate this problem which is countrywide”, Patterson complained.
He said there is a clear lack of understanding of what needs to be done by the government when a natural disaster appears.
“Unless the administration changes their approach and stop blaming people and stop driving around at night and knocking and walking with the media to see if the pump attendants are awake or not. The pump can run as much as 24 hours and the place still will be flooded because the key interventions are just not at the pump and the sluices, the key interventions were not done this year”, he said.
Mr. Patterson is of the belief that that the Government appears not to understand the scope of the problem.
“The Government for some strange reason has been caught with their pants down, sitting on their hands. They have done nothing they have done no mitigation.” Patterson noted
He said the nation continues to see a lack of understanding of the magnitude of the situation and that is building distrust by citizens.
He said in the case of Georgetown, the Government needs to provide the City Council with the needed resources to tackle flooding.
In the past three weeks, Guyana has seen an increase in rainfall and thunderstorms resulting in flooding in a number of communities in every region.
In some areas like Kwakwani in Region 10, the rivers have overflown their banks and the floodwaters have now reached more than 8-feet in height.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login