Water levels receding slowly in regions Five, Ten
the flooding. He opined that a team from the Guyana Lands and Survey Commission should visit and execute a survey so as to determine the best possible area for development.
“They should come now and start surveying and plotting lands because it can be foreseen that as soon as the floods is gone, people will want to squat.
We should seek to avoid that,” he warned.
Meanwhile, Vickchand Ramphal, Chairman of the Region Five Regional Democratic Council, yesterday said that the water from the riverine communities has receded by at least two inches. However, communities like Wash Clothes, Mahaicony, and Big Baiboo, Mahaica, remain waterlogged.
He explained that the water has been slowly receding and they are continuing to monitor the impacts. Ramphal said too that a flood assessment and survey should commence shortly in the region.
He however noted that food and water are still being supplied to affected residents and recently agencies such as the Guyana Livestock Development Authority have distributed bran and other animal feeds to livestock farmers.
“With the water level dropping, a significant amount of farmers have been able to move their cattle to higher grounds. So we are not having so much deaths now,” he related.
He also explained that the Mahaica, Mahaicony, Abary-Agricultural Development Authority and the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority have been continuously monitoring and constructing defensive dams to prevent further flooding.
Minister of Local Government and Regional Development, Nigel Dharamlall on Monday said that the government will be commencing a survey of flood damage.
“As a matter of fact
tomorrow [today] an assessment team will be in Region Six to start doing the assessment in terms of your losses whether it is agricultural, and agricultural includes crops as well as livestock,” the minister informed.
Dharamlall stressed that he would be going around
to the 70 neighbourhood democratic councils in the country as well as the ten towns. “I have to go and make sure that we do the physical assessment of what needs to be fixed and addressed during the course of the recovery after the flood.”