Petty politicians who lack the administrative skills!

Dear Editor,

Kindly permit the Kilcoy/Hampshire Neighbourhood Democratic Council to reply to a damning accusation made by the Regional Vice-Chairman of Region 6, Dennis Deroop, who made a deceitful attempt to distort the truth and absolve his office from any blame for the current flooding at Nigg and Belvedere South.

In an interview with LRTVS Channel 10 in Berbice, Mr Deroop allowed his primitive instinct for political survival to take the foremost when he accused the NDC of not being ‘proactive’. He claimed that if the NDC was proactive, then the current flooding situation would have been reduced or averted. I want to remind Mr Deroop that three months ago we made a representation to both him and the REO, Dr Ramayya, with regards to the cleaning of the sideline which is clogged with vegetation so that water moves at a trickle. We were so ‘proactive’ that we placed this and a sideline at Hampshire in our Annual Budget. However, two weeks ago Mr Deroop, during our NDC budget discussions, told me that he will remove the excavation of the said sidelines from the NDC budget and that the Region will provide a large excavator to do the necessary work. I agreed and my entire NDC can vouch for this!

On Sunday, July 24, some residents complained to me about the dire flood situation they are experiencing due to the massive rainfall the previous night. I immediately called Mr Deroop, who informed me that the only large excavator in the Region is down due to electrical problems, but he will try to get it going. Can you imagine that a Region with a billion dollar budget has only one functioning excavator? This is gross incompetence! Ironically Mr Deroop is not only the Vice Chairman but the head of the Works Committee! This is how emergency situations are created to give contracts to whom they please. An inventory should be made with regards to the machinery and equipment and their current status. I visited the flooded area and had a first- hand look at the situation which was quite bad, so I then tried to call Mr Deroop to impress upon him the emergency of the situation but his phone went unanswered.

I then spoke to the Albion Estate Manager, Mr Shivpersaud, who assured me that they are working all their pumps to alleviate the flood situation. But I know that he was more interested in saving the cane cultivation, rather than the residents, when he declined to offer their usual assistance of providing drainage pumps. It was the practice for GuySuCo to provide pumps to assist in the drainage of the areas. He made it bluntly clear that these are different times and that any such help must be sanctioned by Head Office. It is ironic that we were refused help from this Estate which actually owes our NDC more than $12 million in current and arrears rates and taxes!

On Monday, July 25, I again visited the area at 06:00hrs by which time the flood water has arisen a lot more. I again attempted to call Mr Deroop, but to no avail. I then called PPP Executive Secretary, Mr Mustapha to make contact with him. In desperation I went to Mr Deroop’s home at around 07:30hrs but was told that he was still asleep!

At that point we decided that we will have to solve this problem ourselves, so we decided to use the small excavator assigned to our NDC and with the help of civic minded residents and some CIIP workers, we began cleaning the blocked drainage trench. It must be noted that the small excavator is unable to clean to entire width of the trench. Mr Deroop unashamedly tried to take credit for this when he claimed on TV that he deployed the small excavator to do the work. Everything was in control by the time he made his grand appearance on the scene. The Overseer and I were responsible for this deployment, not him!

Prior to this the REO had also given an undertaking to clean the said drainage trench. In fact, he sent a representative from a contractor to estimate the cost of the work which was to be done. However, we were later told that the Region’s Budget for drainage has already been overspent so the RDC cannot pay for the said work. Despite all of this, we were accused by the Vice Chairman of not being proactive!

In conclusion, I want Mr Deroop to understand that this particular drainage trench was last cleaned more than two years ago and he took office as Vice-Chairman more than one year ago, and he should have been apprised of this situation from the previous Chairman of the NDC who actually lives just across this trench. Since we took over the NDC, three months ago we made numerous representations to the RDC through the Vice Chairman, yet he had the audacity to claim that we should have been ‘proactive’. These are the petty politicians who lack the administrative skills needed to run this Region but are intent on blaming others for their inadequacies!

Yours sincerely,

Haseef Yusuf

Chairman, Kilcoy/

Hampshire NDC