RESIDENTS of the entire northern section of Bath Settlement village, West Coast Berbice, will benefit from improved environmental sanitation and reduced instances of flooding as a result of emergency works on desilting of over 6,000 rods of internal drains currently being undertaken by the administration of Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice).

During a site visit last week, Regional Engineer Mr Dhanpaul Sukha disclosed that the emergency works at Bath Settlement which falls under the Bath/Woodley Park Neighborhood Democratic Council (NDC) began a week ago with funds allocated by the regional administration via its budget for the NDC for 2017.
Regional Executive Officer Ovid Morrison, who also visited the area said that on completion the network of internal drains will be handed over to the NDC for maintenance. He was confident that the NDC will be able to use manual labour to do so, given that the heavier work of desilting is being done mechanically in the current intervention.

Yesterday, residents in the area expressed satisfaction that the project is being executed as emergency works. Enthusiastic residents then pointed to abandoned house- lots in the village which during the rainy season contain stagnant pools of water which breed mosquitoes. They sought assistance from the regional administration to drain these lands.
Morrison however explained to them that the abandoned lands were privately owned and they will need to get the written permission of the owners before the administration can make excavations on such properties “lest we encounter legal problems.”

He assured residents that the administration will assist once this obstacle is cleared, failing which they could at the community level look at manual means of draining the troublesome vacant lots which contribute to the nuisance of mosquitoes in those sections of the village.