Tancoo: Government must fix drainage in Oropouche West

OROPOUCHE WEST MP Davendranath Tancoo has called for urgent attention to water courses in his constituency in the current wet season.

"Use the brief period left between storms to urgently address the drainage issues in Oropouche West," he urged in a statement on July 2.

Saying he was "frustrated and irate," Tancoo said for the last four years he had asked for critical maintenance work in his constituency, but his pleas had fallen on deaf ears.

He urged action by the Ministry of Local Government and Ministry of Works and Transport: clearing water courses, digging retention ponds, dredging and cleaning rivers, and building up the river banks.

This, he said, was so that the thousands of residents of Woodland, San Francique, Gopie Trace, Suchit Trace, Ramjattan Trace, Tulsa Trace and many other flood-prone areas would not undergo the repeated trauma of having their homes, livestock, vehicles and agricultural produce destroyed by floods.

Alleging neglect, he alleged these communities were treated like bastard children.

Tancoo said the Government had received hundreds of millions of dollars from the Latin American Bank (CAF) to treat with flood alleviation, yet had merely told people to expect flooding.

"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?"

He said these flooded communities would be charged the property tax.

"These same communities have been without water for weeks and all we get from ministers is dead silence."

Tancoo said the passage of Hurricane Beryl was a warning to the country of what was likely to come in the next few months.