Lack of funding to deal with rainy season

The Mayaro constituency will have to prepare itself for the rainy season and floods that come with it.

So said MP for Mayaro Rushton Paray, speaking to the media at the 21st-anniversary celebration of the Eastern Regional Health Authority Tuesday at the St Francis of Assisi RC Church, Sangre Grande.

He admitted that there was a funding problem and minimal work had been done in terms of drainage. Paray said plans have been put in place to avoid a recurrence if they should have some major rain like in recent times.

“As MP I have gotten all the stakeholders together — police, fire, regional corporation — to sit down and discuss what we are going to do this year. There has been some work with the river courses, but funding is an issue at the regional corporation. There has been no real, substantial impact in terms of putting things in place for this rainy season,” Paray said.

“I know the Mayaro Regional Corporation has done all it possibly can to prepare before the rainy season is here. Resources will always be an issue and we will make the best out of what we have if any eventuality happens,” he added.

Paray said the corporation has only received 30 per cent of the funding allocated in the 2017-2018 budget, which posed a problem for the constituency. He said not enough work has been done in the Mayaro constituency in clearing the main outputs and outflows of water into the ocean.