City Mayor rubbishes Agri Minister’s flood claims

GEORGETOWN MAYOR UBRAJ NARINE RUBBISHED AGRICULTURE MINISTER
ZULFIKAR MUSTAPHA’s assertions that mischief among municipal officials is to blame for
overnight flooding of several Wards in the capital city, Georgetown.
“These things are not true, we in the City Council are trying since I took office to work with
National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA) and the Civil Defence Commission (CDC) to
see how we can reduce flooding.  Since Minister Zulfikar took over the Ministry of Agriculture,
we have been getting a fight down between the NDIA and the City Council,” Mayor Narine
stressed.
The Chief Citizen assailed Minister Mustapha’s claims slamming it as lacking “logical sense”
since the majority of Georgetown’s residents supports the opposition coalition A Partnership for
National Unity, Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) political party.
“It is reprehensible to even suggest that the Council will deliberately affect a majority of their
supporters,” Mayor Narine said expressing shock at the government official’s statements.
“You have a City Engineer who is responsible for those things Georgetown which is
an APNU+AFC base. Why would we want to stifle our own people? Why would we flood out
our own people? Are these Ministers’ crazy? Narine asked.
“We never have thoughts of doing such things to people. To deliberately flood somebody home
is worse than murder. Is the minister in his right sense speaking on these matters? I don’t think
so something has to be wrong with him,” the Mayor suggested.
The Mayor reminded that flooding in the capital city has been a decades-old problem given the
topography of the land which is below sea level. He said the ruling Peoples Progressive Party
Civic (PPPC) was in government continuously between 1912 and 2015 and should have better
insight into this particular perennial challenge faced by Georgetown.

Narine pointed to what he described as “the lackadaisical approach” by Mustapha’s Ministry and
the Irfaan Ally government for the current swamping of the city.
“I don’t know if the minister slept properly or if he is in his right mind. I don’t know but we can
show our records, I have spoken to the Deputy City Engineer, I have spoken to the assistant
engineer and the records are there,” he said.
Mustapha and his government colleagues must speak to the people on the ground to better
understand what is taking place, Mayor Narine counselled.
“The same guys who are carrying the news and are visiting our pumps can’t sit in their vehicles
and assess the situation. I found the guys sitting in their vehicles doing assessment. When I was
about to leave the compound, it was then he came out and told me that he is assessing the pumps.
How can you sit in your vehicle and do that? You have to come out and speak to the pump
attendant to get right information so that you can relay proper information to NDIA,” he said.
He continued, “You go and speak to NDIA and they will tell you that none of them ain’t see
nobody after 2.30 pm, as I spoke to them. Minister Zulfikar is out of context and I will not
tolerate such ignorance coming from him towards the city. I find his comments very
disrespectful and I find it very distasteful too.”
In explaining what needs to be done in remedying the situation, the Mayor related that when he
met with the President and team recently he pointed out that Georgetown has a very good
drainage system but it needs to be reviewed because of the current boom in infrastructural
development.
“We have to sit around the table: NDIA, CDC, Mayor and City Council and other stakeholders
as a group and stop blaming each other. But I find as the Mayor, every single thing that happens
to the city you cast blame. You have Mayor and City Council blaming Central Government and
vice versa. We (cannot) continue this back and forth. How long can we as leaders…put peoples’
lives in danger? He queried rhetorically.

“In the end, I am seeing that Georgetown will continue to suffer. I want to reiterate that I
am ready to work with any government for the betterment of the city of Georgetown. I
have no interest, and not ready, to play political games with the city of Georgetown and the
people livelihood,” Mayor Narine emphasised.