Minister Whittaker and the Georgetown flood

After $500 million spent, a small army of ordinary citizens mobilized to manually clean drains, and excavators pressed into service to dredge the main canals, Georgetown experienced the worst flooding it has seen since 2005. So much for the ‘Clean up my Country’ campaign; at least now we know it was nothing more than a slogan.

And what excuses did the authorities have to offer citizens this time around? Well there sat Minister of Local Government Norman Whittaker at a press conference on Friday, not displaying even a hint of sheepishness. It was negligence on the part of the Mayor and City Council, he told reporters quite unabashedly, that was responsible for the flooding, but that drainage work conducted by the ministry had helped to alleviate the highest recorded rainfall level in decades. Warming to his topic, he then adopted a posture of faux contrition by telling the media that his ministry had failed to put enough pressure on the city council to deal adequately with the maintenance of flood prevention mechanisms before the rains came.

And if this unadulterated piffle was not enough for residents to digest, he crowned it all by stating that siltation and garbage build-up were responsible for the waters not receding more quickly. Is he suggesting that the ‘Clean up…’ which involved an impressive number of the capital’s residents working on a voluntary basis to clear internal drains of garbage and debris was a failure? Or that they didn’t do a good job? If so, his eyes pass them.

Perhaps he didn’t even bother to clamber into his impressive, government-provided vehicle and ask to be driven around the streets of Georgetown – and the other coastal areas affected, come to that – but stayed warm and dry above the water line. If he had moved around the city he would have discovered that in a general sense the garbage problem was not nearly as bad as it had been in previous floods, although it was more of an issue in some areas than in others where volunteers had worked. And perhaps he might have noticed too that there were sectors where there was no garbage floating around, where the residents dig their drains regularly and generally keep their surroundings clear, but where the inundation was particularly severe. And what would he have to say to that? Ah yes, he would have brushed it off with the convenient rationalization that these were particularly low-lying areas.

When asked by this newspaper why repairs on pumps and sluice doors together with desiltation were only now under way, Mr Whittaker responded: “This is the council’s responsibility; Public Works does support by helping with the main canals.” Stabroek News went on to quote him as remarking on Friday: “We, as a ministry, we facilitate, we oversee, we ask the council to do what they’re supposed to do…” If the Ministry of Local Government thinks it has been facilitating anything, it is mistaken; if it believes it has been overseeing anything, it is mistaken; and as for asking the council to do “what they’re supposed to do,” the Minister should be looking at himself.

The person who is really in control at City Hall is Town Clerk (ag) Carol Sooba, who was placed there by none other than Minister Whittaker in defiance of the requirements for the post, the recommendation of the interviewing panel and common sense itself. Even if the city council gives her instructions about the drainage system, there is ample evidence to demonstrate that she never listens to them; she takes her orders only from the Minister. If, therefore, she hasn’t been doing “what [she’s] supposed to do,” the onus is on the Minister to see that she does it, or to have her removed.

And this is the city official, Mr Whittaker should be reminded, whose workers were recently encountered dumping garbage from the city’s two leading markets in side streets, making a mockery of ‘Clean up my Country.’ Has he lambasted his appointee or has he taken action of any kind in this matter given that it is undermining the government’s much advertised campaign? If not, then why is he, of all people, complaining about garbage in the capital’s waterways?

But even that is not the major issue in relation to the city council. As everyone in Georgetown knows – Minister Whittaker apparently excepted, that is – the city council simply does not have the resources to discharge all its functions, and the central government for political reasons has not stepped in to fill the breach. This was confirmed yet again by City Engineer Colvern Venture at a meeting in City Hall on Friday. So what, exactly is the Minister talking about? It all comes back to the government playing its usual political games with Georgetown, only this time the game involves huge losses incurred both by businesspeople and householders.

As it is, the Minister should be the last person to complain about the city council when it is his government which, in defiance of democratic norms is refusing to hold local government elections.

Of course the powers that be as well as the Minister of Local Government have been rambling on about how unusual a phenomenon this was, and how the rainfall in Georgetown was higher than in 2005. Haven’t they heard of climate change? Why should they not anticipate that we are going to be facing more of these episodes? Or is it that their usual ostrich mentality is at work?

Then there is the most useless department in the whole of the Guyana government bureaucracy, (and it has some serious competition there) namely, the Hydrometeorological Services. No matter what the character of the flood, whether from sea water or heavy precipitation, we are told it could not be predicted. The public has been informed that Hydromet now has access to sophisticated equipment, but we still get no warning of unusual rains, etc. Is it that it lacks the qualified personnel necessary to use the technology? Whatever the case, as far as the average citizen is concerned, it makes more sense to Google the information or have recourse to the BBC et al. Perhaps the Hydromet Department should follow suit.

Then there is the Clean up… campaign itself. In a recent letter to this newspaper Mr Tony Vieira said that the Ministry of Works was using the wrong equipment on the canals along with the wrong approach, and he explained his reasons in unvarnished terms. The Mayor raised again the matter of clearing the outfalls; this task is the responsibility of the central government in any case, and Minister Whittaker would naturally be reticent about indicating to the press whether it was being undertaken on a regular basis. But let us ask the Minister the question directly: Have the outfalls been cleared?

But there is something else too, and that is the whole conception of Clean up my Country; it ended up being neither fish nor fowl. Was it an anti-garbage and litter campaign, or was it intended to ameliorate flooding? While garbage is one of the factors in the flooding equation, it is far from being the only one. If it was an exercise directed at drainage and flooding issues, then no proper preparatory planning was done, and as Mr Vieira said and the Private Sector Commission more-or-less implied, it was in addition poorly managed. If better drainage was one of the objectives, it would have required engineers to look at the problem in the city as a whole, put up a proposal about what needed to be done (not excluding replacing or mending the broken culverts in some areas), what equipment would be required, and give a costing and a timeline. Then it would have needed proper supervision.

As it was everything was done in a rush, $500 million materialized suddenly and half-baked work or none at all was undertaken in many instances. There were a few lucky areas where the work accomplished spared them, but for the most part, huge swathes of Georgetown greeted the morning of November 20 partially submerged. It is a painful commentary on government’s inability to think ahead, consult the best skills available and manage projects of a certain technical complexity. If this campaign was intended by the ruling party as an electioneering gimmick, it has certainly backfired on them.

And as for Minister Whittaker, he would be well advised to stay out of the limelight and avoid making statements. There is absolutely nothing he can say which can explain away this fiasco.