$5B budgeted for sea and river defences
The PPP/C government has proposed a budget of over $5 billion to strengthen the sea and river defence infrastructure in regions Three, Five and Six, Minister of Finance Dr Ashni Singh announced.
In his budget presentation last Friday to the National Assembly, Singh said the money has been earmarked for construction, rehabilitation and maintenance of sea and river defences at Uitvlugt, Anna Catherina, Dantzig, Prospect, Content, Fair-field, Manila, Zealand, Cane Garden, and No. 63 Beach.
Singh announced that his government continues to take strenuous steps to protect the country’s vulnerable shoreline. The existing conventional hard-infrastructure solutions, he told the House, are expensive and are not adaptable to rising sea levels and climate change vulnerabilities. On this note, the Finance Minister said government intends to promote natural interventions in the form of groynes and restored mangrove forests from replanting and natural regeneration to complement the significant investment in hard-structures.
In the same breath he announced that $50 million has been budgeted to construct geotextile rubble groynes, and to conduct topographic surveys.
Further, he stressed that government continues to closely monitor the shore line and has reactivated the sea defence rangers, and started applying drone technology to monitor shore line movement and the erosion and accretion cycle. He noted, too, that there has been an intensified routine maintenance, and deploying stockpiles of armour rocks to strategic locations to ensure that quick response mechanisms are in place to avert breaches.
Along the Mahaicony coast, the mangrove fringe and other natural sea defences that were in place have been washed away, leaving just a narrow dam that is now exposed and rapidly eroding.
As a result the livelihoods of residents and farmers between Fairfield and Columbia have been threatened as they face millions in losses in the event of unexpected flooding during abnormal tides.
During a 2018 engagement at the University of Guyana’s 21st installment of its Turkeyen and Tain Talks “Green Building for Resilient Future Cities,” former Minister of Public Infrastructure David Patterson, announced that $14 billion was needed between 2020 and 2022 to effect “urgent” repairs to 32.9 kilometers of Guyana’s sea defence. He had explained that if government fails to execute these works, communities across the coast will suffer a fate similar to that of Mahaicony, East Coast Demerara.
Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony yesterday said that at last word 668 healthcare workers have gotten the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine and that he is pleased with the response.
The minister made this disclosure during the daily COVID-19 update where he stated that on the first day of vaccinations last Friday, some 318 persons were inoculated while on the second day, around 350 more workers were vaccinated.
Guyana was able to kick off vaccinations following a donation of 3,000 vaccines from Barbados. This donation would fully vaccinate 1500 persons. Georgetown is also expecting 102,000 doses from the COVAX mechanism and China is donating 20,000 doses.
While he noted that he did not have the direct figures for the subsequent vaccination days at the time, Anthony said that a lot of persons came forward to be vaccinated. “A lot of people came forward, they wanted the vaccines and in fact the amount of vaccines we took initially, we ran out because we didn’t cater for so many people coming forward”, Anthony said.
The minister noted that they were able to sort that issue out and ensure that everyone that came forward to be vaccinated was able to receive it. While noting that the authorities are happy with the response of the healthcare workers, he specifically noted that he was pleased that the senior doctors at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation led their teams by example and were vaccinated.
Some of the senior doctors he mentioned include, Dr. Fawcett Jeffrey who is the head of Medical Services at GPHC, Dr. Tracey Bovell who manages the Liliendaal facility and Dr. Mahendra Carpen who is the head of internal medicine at GPHC. He added that a lot of the consultant senior personnel took their vaccines and a number of other doctors wanted the vaccine.
“So I think our challenge very shortly would be that we don’t have enough vaccines for everyone at this point in time, which is a good thing, a good problem to have because our expectations are by the end of the month, we would be receiving thousands of doses of additional vaccines, and that way we would be able to roll out” the health minister stated.
With that he mentioned that they should have enough vaccines to cover at least all healthcare workers and subsequently move to the other population groups.
Meanwhile, when asked if the authorities have so far recorded any adverse reactions or severe side effects to the vaccine, he stated that most of the persons who would have received the vaccines have only experienced the usual side effects which he said include redness or irritation at the site of injection and soreness along with headaches.
“All these are expected. It shows that your body is reacting to the vaccine which means that your immune system is probably working and starting to produce the antibodies that are necessary to fight off COVID”, Anthony noted.
He disclosed that a national committee has been set up to conduct pharmacovigilance which means collecting, detecting and monitoring adverse effects of the vaccine. This committee,
he said, will then be able to explain to persons how to resolve adverse effects if they occur.
Anthony reiterated, “So far we have not had any major adverse events, all that we have had is these things that we expect”.