UNDERSTAFFING, lack of fulfillment of requested materials and equipment, and conflicting policies are among the issues which are affecting the effective functioning of the City Engineer’s Department.

This is according to City Engineer, Colvern Venture, who spoke at an end-of-year press conference held on Friday at City Hall.

During the presser, Venture gave an overview of the subpar accomplishments of many of the department’s most important sub-sections, including the building inspectorate, drainage maintenance, and road and parapet maintenance.

For the drainage maintenance section, Venture revealed that the city was only able to execute maintenance work on approximately 35 per cent of the 645 miles of drainage network that it oversees.

“That is not something I am satisfied with. Going forward next year I am hoping that we can achieve much more than this. I hope we can achieve 100 per cent of what we are proposing,” he said

For the building inspectorate, the department was able to approve 65 per cent of the 552 building applications it received for the year. However, for the road maintenance section, the department was unable to carry out any of its task due to lack of materials. According to Venture, over the past 14 years, the city has not carried out any major road maintenance work.

Regarding the drainage maintenance section, he said notwithstanding the modest accomplishment, he is proud of what the section was able to accomplish given the greatly reduced staff size.

Venture explained that while the section has 11 staff members, it is in need of at least 59 more employees.

“I must compliment the staff that work to achieve with the constraints that we are working under. Eleven staff to carry out maintenance of the city drainage network and address issues is not sufficient for the Engineer’s Department to work with. The 11 staff cannot …cover the 15.2 square miles within Georgetown, that cannot happen. But I must compliment them for the effort throughout the year,” Venture noted.

This department also faced transportation issues this year.

“The City Engineer’s Department has also been functioning with one tractor and trailer to address all the issues of drainage, transporting of building and other materials and staff within the city. It’s not sufficient,” he noted.

Venture thanked the Ministries of Agriculture, Public Works, and Local Government and Regional Development, for the important roles they played to ensure infrastructural works were done in the city.

In the building inspectorate sub-section, Venture said the department is operating with seven building inspectors, who cover over 10 wards. He said there is need for at least six more inspectors.

“That’s a great challenge because many of these wards are large. It’s a challenge for them to properly supervise because they have to be in office to process these applications and be in the fields. It’s not just plans that they are looking at but they are also looking at other construction activities, such as the construction of parapet, bridges and all those things,” he explained.

He noted that squatting on reserves, and the council’s implementation of conflicting policies are making work even more difficult for the department.

Venture added that in some cases the council would grant approvals for citizens to use reserves, which then encumber the Engineer’s Department’s ability to access the drains for cleaning.

He noted that the council had also implemented a policy restricting the Engineer’s Department from demolishing illegal structures around the city. However, individual councillors, including Mayor Ubraj Narine, would later try to instruct the department to demolish structures.

He said for 2022 he is hoping that there will be better relations between the council and the administration.