Local construction company, Unicom, has denied a complaint from residents of New Providence that it is filling in a drainage canal to make an access road to property it owns in the area.
New Providence, East Bank Demerara resident, Kamini Bulkan in a letter published in the Stabroek News on Sunday, July 24, complained that a private company was filling the canal that runs north to south from Mocha Road to Stadium Road. She also said in her letter, that in 2018, this company claimed that it was the owner of the western drainage canal and reserve which runs north to south from Mocha Road to Stadium Road. According to her, the residents of the area learnt that the company planned to fill up the canal which separates their neighbourhood from the company’s land. She also said that the company planned to build a 10-foot fence parallel to their backyard fence, and construct a four-foot concrete drain. Bulkan did not name the company but Stabroek News later found out that it was Unicom.
President of the New Providence Residents Association (NPRA) Saudia Ferouz, said since January, residents have sought the intervention of the Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC) in the matter and was told that the NDC never transferred ownership of the canal nor the reserve to anyone and would issue a “Cease Order.”
Several calls to the Eccles/Ramsburg NDC by Stabroek News to speak with its chairman Anand Kalladeen were unsuccessful.
Bulkan contended that apparently the Cease Order was never issued, because on the night of April 26, 2022, the company resumed filling the canal. She said several residents converged at the scene and recorded the activities of the company. According to her, the next day, residents once again approached the NDC with the video evidence and demanded proof of action taken by the local body. Bulkan stated that to date the association has not received a response.
Minister of Local Government and Regional Development, Nigel Dharamlall, in response to a Stabroek News query said that NDCs have no authority to sell or dispose of in any way government’s reserves and canals. He also said that he had asked his staff to look into the matter and he would get back to Stabroek News. The minister’s phone rang out when attempts were made to elicit an update from him.
Peter Daby, owner of Unicom, the private company, denied filling in the canal. He said that while the company owns the adjoining property, he did not want the canal. According to him, pictures from residents which purportedly showed the company filling the canal was really the company’s attempt to clear their land and clean the waterway, ensuring drainage of the area. He accused some residents of erecting structures on the government’s reserve, which hinders the cleaning of the overgrown canal.
In a visit to the area on Thursday, Daby showed this newspaper two canals, one bordering lands own by Unicom and another which borders the New Providence neighbourhood. The two heavily overgrown canals are separated by an almost 30 feet expanse of land, which Daby said is the government’s reserve.
According to him, sometime back the NDC had given his father, the late Paul Daby, permission, to fill the canal which borders the company’s land, to make an access road, and in exchange his father would have cleared the other canal and built a concrete culvert which would have drained the entire community into the main canal which leads out to the Demerara River. When told that the minister said that the NDC had no authority to do so, Daby said that from his understanding, the NDC made the offer because his father’s plan would have benefitted the entire community.
Not draining anywhere
Daby said that currently the canal was not draining anywhere. According to him, there was no way for any water from the canal along the Stadium Road to drain into the canal that borders the company’s land. He showed Stabroek News where a part of the canal in question at the Stadium Road end had been filled in seemingly a long time ago, by someone else. He was adamant that it was not Unicom who filled it in.
“So to say that we are filling this canal is causing flooding, doesn’t make sense. First we have not filled any part of the canal, and second their yards are flooding because the canal behind their property need cleaning,” he contended.
“We don’t want any canal, and since my father passed, we have decided that we would not spend over US$1 million to clear the canal and build the concrete drainage,” said Daby. ‘We also have no plans to build any wall anywhere,” he said. Daby pointed out several structures on the government’s reserve which he said were erected by some of the residents who are complaining.
The businessman was particularly upset about the section of Bulkan’s letter which described the company in question as operating “like a thief in the dark.” Bulkan in her letter said that on April 26, “like a thief in the dark, the filling of the canal resumed.”
He stated; “We don’t need to operate like a thief in the dark to clear our land. We do it when it’s cool and when our machines are available,” he noted.
Bulkan told Stabroek News that while the canal no longer serves navigational and irrigation purposes for GuySuCo, it was expanded to become central to the drainage network of neighbouring communities since the construction of the Guyana National Stadium at Providence. She noted that the canal served as an important drainage catchment for the community which was established since 1968. Residents believe that a recent increase in flooding is as a direct result of the filling in of the canal. Bulkan told Stabroek News that the canal had not been cleaned since she moved there in 1997.
The canal which was described as the western boundary, runs north to south, and is said to be an access waterway to the main canal on Mocha Road which leads out to the Demerara River. Residents complained that they have been suffering flooding whenever it rains and blamed the filling of the canal and the non-cleaning of other waterways in the New Providence Scheme and other nearby communities.
