MP questions slow payment for Central flood victims

THE day after flood victims in Beetham received compensation cheques for damage they suffered in a flood three weeks ago, Couva North MP Ramona Ramdial is asking why hundreds of flood victims from Couva and surrounding areas are still waiting for compensation from three years ago.

Ramdial claimed she was happy to see “MP Fitzgerald Hinds distributing flood-compensation cheques to the flood victims of Beetham just a mere three weeks after the flood event.”

She was heartened, she said, as it signalled to her that “finally the Minister of Social Development, Minister Cherry-Ann Crichlow-Cockburn had persevered and ensured all flood-compensation cheques were processed for flood victims from as far back as 2016.”

In a media release, Ramdial said it would be “a crying shame if this government by its own actions is accused again of being unpatriotic due to the inequitable distribution of resources.”

She said the plight of residents of the flood-prone Central areas had been exacerbated since 2015 by the lack of maintenance of major rivers and natural watercourses by the PNM government.

Her constituents “are prepared to overlook the record-breaking processing of cheques for the Beetham residents who got flooded out a few weeks ago if Minister Crichlow- Cockburn will ensure that the cheques for all other flood victims from 2016 and 2017 are processed,” she said.

As MP for Couva North she said she could attest that hundreds of flood victims within the Couva/Tabaquite/Talparo Regional Corporation have not been compensated for flooding in 2016.

Ramdial said she would not like to think that the Dr Keith Rowley-led government is compensating flood victims of Beetham “to score cheap politics points because they turned on their MP, Fitzgerald Hinds, when he visited during the floods with arms swinging and empty words.”

She is calling on Crichlow-Cockburn to tell all other flood victims how soon her ministry officials will be visiting flood-affected communities to distribute the long-awaited cheques.