By Sue-Ann Wayow
GOVERNMENT will be taking legal action against persons who interfere with government property especially as it is contributing to flooding.
It will also be going aggressively after persons who construct illegal structures that contributes to flooding.
This was the declaration made by Minister of Rural Development and Local Government Faris Al-Rawi.
Speaking at a press conference on Thursday to update the nation on the flood situation, Al-Rawi said there have been reports of persons tampering with public works that caused flooding.
He admonished, “I want to tell people, stop interfering with public works!”
Al-Rawi said, “There was a report coming out of Arouca of a bridge collapsed. We went. We checked. The bridge did not collapse. We had a walkway which was interfered illegally with, somebody went and moved the government’s wall and what happened was that the water was diverted and came in. Illegal intrusions into waterways are affecting public works and are going to cause problems.”
He warned that information was already in his hand and the intention was to take legal action against people that interfere with roadways, waterways and other public works.
“What is going to happen is that you impact your neighbours,” Al-Rawi said.
He again said in Penal/Debe an area that thankfully did not experience severe flooding as customary, private citizens have reclaimed land, “left a whole two feet of space for the people water to pass through,”
“That is just wrong,” Al-Rawi said.
“I want to warn you that the Ministry of Rural Development and Local Government is taking aggressive action on these matters as will the Ministry of Works and Transport and other areas that have legal capacity and proper location to take action.” he stated.
People who also built homes in flood-prone areas, can be assisted through the Squatter Regularisation Programme, Housing and Village Improvement Programme. In those cases, persons are asked to protect themselves as best as they could.
Al-Rawi said government through the Ministry of Works and Transport was placing focus on placing culverts and upsizing the capacity of drainage issues, “ a very large programme” which was catered for in the Budget.
He did admit that flooding was an effect of urbanisation, quarrying on hills and improvements made over time and needed to constantly monitored adding that countries around the world were experiencing similar phenomena.
Saying that there are many forms of illegality where construction and development are concerned, Al-Rawi gave another example of an illegal driveway constructed at the Eastern Main Road in the D’Abadie, near the Triple-A tyre shop that also caused flash flooding.
He said the implementation of the property tax management should assist with identifying those issues as every property will be under scrutiny.
