With heavy rainfall expected over the next few days and with a possible extension of the rainy season, President Irfaan Ali has assured that all systems are in place to minimize flooding in and around the city, as well as other vulnerable areas.
The President, along with Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha, and Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport, Charles Ramson Jr., and other officials, visited several pump stations late last night into early this morning to assess the state of readiness for any possible flooding.
“We have 217 pumps nationally deployed working around the clock in all of the critical areas, on Friday we will have an additional eleven pumps that will be in the country and will be deployed in other areas,” the President noted.
The President said a special initiative to deal with the flooding will be implemented.
In addition, he noted that special teams will be deployed around construction sites to ensure that there is no impediment to the drainage system, as well as to check for blockages in other areas.
“We are also addressing the issue of indiscriminate dumping of garbage in the city, right now our focus is on getting the water out and ensuring that as far as possible we have all the systems in place. What I am very happy about is that all our systems are in place, all are functional, all the pumps and we also establish a joint service and they have a team that is going out all night to ensure that the pumps who are working are in place and the people to work them are there,” the President said.
Meanwhile, Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha, noted that all 15 pumps around the city are fully operational, but he said there will be continuous monitoring of the situation as the rainy season persists.
“We are looking at the situation wherever we have low lying areas where we have water accumulating. So far, we haven’t had any major concerns to date where residents’ houses would have flooded out but we are still monitoring, and we are going to put additional pumps in vulnerable areas and we will continue to monitor those areas,” the agriculture minister said.
On Monday, the Hydromet Service of Guyana issued a weather bulletin warning of widespread rainfall and an increased risk of flooding across the country. The weather warning will remain in place until up to May 15.
The Government’s proactive approach reflects lessons learned from previous flooding events and aims to protect residents and infrastructure from the anticipated heavy rainfall.
