Flood-affected Black Bush farmers to benefit from technical assistance-PM

Prime Minister, Brigadier (Ret’d) Mark Phillips, on Wednesday said that the Government will be assisting flood-affected residents of Black Bush Polder, East Berbice – Corentyne (Region Six), to bring relief to the community in the shortest possible time.

On the ground, the Prime Minister told the residents, that each household affected within the predominant farming community will receive a hamper, while farmers are expected to benefit from technical assistance. 

“Our decisions are aimed at bringing relief to the people of this community in the shortest possible time… we will have the Civil Defence Commission (CDC) coming into the area with some food hampers and some sanitation hampers to distribute to every household”.

Many sections of the community have been underwater as a result of excessive rainfall.

Yesterday, the Prime Minister visited Yakusari, Johanna, Mibicuri and Lesbeholden all located within Black Bush Polder.

The senior government official made the trip to assess the impact of the flood and to meet with the affected residents.

Just last week, he made a similar visit to Upper Takatu-Upper Essequibo (Region 9).

Minister of Agriculture, the Honourable Zulfikar Mustapha, who accompanied the Prime Minister, said that the sub-agencies of the Ministry of Agriculture will be doing its utmost to assist farmers in the area who would have suffered losses as a result of the flood.

“Many persons would have suffered losses in terms of livestock, cash crops and rice. Our various agencies will be looking at that. I commit that we will try as much as possible to assist those who would have suffered losses in those areas, giving them back materials and things like that”.

Over the past few days, there has been excessive rainfall across the country. According to the Minister, the drainage system is not designed to accommodate such large volumes of water within a short period of time.

“Our drainage system does not cater to take off that amount of rainfall within a 24-hour period, we are seeing now five to six inches of rainfall within 24 hours and our system is engineered to take off just 2 ½ inches of water, so that is putting a lot of pressure on our drainage system”.

He added that in Black Bush Polder, his Ministry has employed several pumps to drain the water off of the land.

Yesterday, the National Weather Watch Centre forecasted that there would be persisting rainfall across Guyana until Sunday, May 30.  The agency said that some parts of the country may record as much as 4 ½ inches of water.

The CDC in a post on its Facebook page said that it will be monitoring several flood-prone areas and provide support where necessary.