Diego Martin Regional Corporation chairman Lindon George says he does not have the resources to deal with the flooding and landslides caused by the torrential rains over the past three days that have besieged the area under his jurisdiction.

The Corporation has responsibility for Diego Martin, Maraval and Carenage.

’Our corporation has six backhoes and we still renting... In Maraval, over seven backhoes were doing work with various trucks, right, there alone,’ George said, in an interview with the Sunday Express, yesterday. He said the Corporation, like others around the country that have had to deal with flooding and landslides because of heavy rains in the past few months, was doing its best with the resources at its disposal.

’When you looked at what happened in Maraval alone, the type of equipment that had to go inside of there and bring some semblance of sanity to that area, I mean, no one could truly say that they have all of the resources,’ George said.

He said the Corporation has been working ’non-stop’ to deal with the reports of flooding and landsides in Diego Martin and Maraval over last few days.

Local Government Minister Hazel Manning had told the Parliament during the debate on the Municipal Corporations (Amendment) Bill, 2008, earlier this year, that Government was not about ’ole talk’ when it came to the improving the ability of the nation’s 14 municipal (city or regional) corporations.

’We are action oriented and in this regard, we have obtained Cabinet approval for the establishment of Disaster Management Units, in each of the fourteen municipalities with a central coordinating unit in the Ministry of Local Government. We will be collaborating with ODPM to ensure consistency in policy and standard,’ Manning said.

She further said: ’Steps have already been taken to have these units staffed and equipped before the height of the hurricane season in July.’

The Local Government Ministry had also conducted an in-house Disaster Management Training Symposium at the Couva/Tabaquite/Talparo Regional Corporation, for disaster management coordinators within the Municipal Corporations.

Yesterday, George told the Sunday Express that once the rains subside, the Diego Martin Regional Corporation and its counterparts across the country will be seeking to improve their ability to respond to the kinds of floods and landslides that have become a regular feature with heavy rainfall.

’What we need to do in the dry season is to sit down and properly put things in place to mitigate what we have experienced in this rainy season and certainly the regional corporation will be playing its part and we are sitting with the Ministry of Works looking at some critical drainage issues-that is the approach we are taking but certainly we would like to have much more equipment than we (now) have,’ he said.