By Bebi Shafeah Oosman

DESPITE heavy rainfall in recent times, there has been a minimal report of flooding in Region Six due to government’s extended long-term interventions with the allocation of excavators to each local authority along with continued clearing of canals.
Member of Parliament, Zamal Hussain, in an interview on Tuesday, stated that while the drainage system caters for 2 inches of rainfall, there is sometimes a report of 8 inches, “and because of that the government has been putting several measures in place; we eliminate the kind of flooding that we used to have in 2020 when we come into government.”
According to him, Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha, around six months ago, handed over an excavator to every neighborhood democratic council, an intervention that has assisted to improve the situation continuously.
“We have two sections of drainage system; one is the housing area drainage system, and one is the farmlands, the backlands area, and the housing area used to be flooded in quick time, but because of the Minister’s intervention with giving every NDC area a mini excavator, that is a super intervention, an excellent intervention, where that is one of the reason why we didn’t have flooding in the housing areas because of the intervention of these small excavators.”
Hussain explained that the NDCs have been working with the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA) to ensure the machine works constantly and desilts all the internal drains in housing areas, “so that intervention alone was an intervention that was able to minimise the amount of flooding that we have in the housing areas.”
Turning to the farming areas, Hussain said that the government has been working assiduously to ensure canals in all areas are maintained. “That is something that was a burning issue when we came into government; now we have it under control; we excavate and we maintain a number of drainage and irrigation canals in this region.”
The Member of Parliament estimated that over 100 canals, including primary and secondary drainage, were done, “and also the ministry with the leadership of Minister Mustapha and Lionel Wordsworth, the CEO of NDIA they bring to the region an amphibious excavator, a piece of equipment that can manage channels quickly… We just activate it, they go into the channels and they cleared channels.”
He then took the opportunity to clarify the statement by persons claiming that the outfall channels are not cleaned at the right time; however, Hussain explained that “we have to bear in mind that the outfall is silted because whenever the tide come up and it goes down back, the amount because of the Atlantic they have a lot of slush coming up, so these things can only be desilted when the rain start to fall, so unless you don’t do that then in a week period the whole channel silt up again and a lot of people don’t understand it.”
Hussain stressed, “that is one of the main reasons why we have to desilt when the rain start to fall and the population outside there need to understand these things; we can’t desilt and then the rain don’t fall, it makes no sense.”
With the amphibious excavator, Hussain, the former regional vice chairman of Region Six, pointed out that during the rain the outfalls were quickly desilted. “The maintenance of sluice is a key issue in the region and I think we spent a lot of money to maintain the sluices right across Region Six, the channels and the outfalls because those things are critical for our drainage system.”
However, he added that there are challenges with the operators for the sluices, as he explained that he personally visited one of the sluices during the heavy rainfall recently where “the human aspect of it, the actual person that manages it, they failed to do so, and they might put people under risk when you have an accumulation of water, but we go there and intervene and did it in a timely manner…”
According to Hussain, the regional authority, along with himself and the Ministry of Agriculture has constantly been on the ground, and this is important because “that assist to ensure that the kokers and the sluices and also the pumps work on the timings being prescribed because if you don’t have those intervention you will get heavy flooding in the region.”
He stressed, “I think we did excellent in the last month, and we are working on the Hope-like canals, and this is a big project for the region and the Ministry of Agriculture working assiduously. We went we did the ground work, reach with the farmers and we have been able to do about 50% of the work whereby the dams and so from the Canje Creek, in the 2021 flood you know the Canje Creek and so was overtopping and now that can’t happen because from Venchap (New Forest) to Number 66 we already installed the Hope-like canal dam so that is another excellent intervention where the Hope-like canal is helping us to manage the water coming in from the Canje Creek and this is something that people don’t really see every day.”
Hussain pointed out that President Irfaan Ali is very passionate about the works ongoing in Region Six, “we want more production, we want more rice, we want more cattle, all of these things we are working to ensure that we put systems in place so that these interventions can benefit the farmers.”
Meanwhile, Hussain also stated that major developmental projects cannot be executed “overnight.” “We are working with a very fast pace and we are trying our best to put the necessary interventions to make sure we have maximum, so drainage and irrigation have improved tremendously in this region.”