Flooding can either be an act of God or man. Or a mix of both. The widespread flooding that took place in various parts of North Trinidad yesterday fell into each and all of these categories. We have been having a period of heavy rainfall which is beyond the control of either the Government or the people. Yesterday’s rains came down on land that was already sodden which meant that natural drainage did not occur, with the water running down at will wherever it found a way to go.

But what continues to be instructive is the way floods have become almost ubiquitous, with places not known to be so prone now finding themselves on the flood map. In this regard, we are mindful of the observation made by Works and Transport Minister, Colm Imbert, who contends that ’people who build homes and other structures outside the regulations must be dealt with in order to deal with the increase in flooding throughout the country.’

Speaking towards the end of August this year, Minister Imbert emphasised that it was ’something’’ that had to be addressed ’very, very seriously’’, that something being to ’take very firm action, decisive action against errant developers.’’

For the Minister, high among the causes of ’flooding in this country was the ongoing pace of development’’, but even as he read the riot act, Mr Imbert predicted that addressing the problem would ’get complicated because people are always unwilling to be relocated or to comply’’.

Still, he held steadfast to the view that ’if we’re gonna develop as a First World country, we will have to adopt the practices of a developed country in terms of controlling development in flood-prone areas. There is absolutely no doubt that we need to improve our enforcement capabilities. The regulations are there, the standards are there, the engineering designs are available. What has happened is that people have blocked water courses, they have built their homes right on the banks of rivers, they’ve put their boundary walls right in the paths of rivers and so on and the enforcement capability with Town and Country Planning, within the regional corporations and within the Ministry of Works needs to be beefed up.’’

We did not expect to see a change overnight but to date we have not noted any examples of the Government’s resolve on this matter in keeping with Mr Imbert’s expressed determination - certainly, not on the high end. Recently, Mr Imbert has accused this newspaper of endeavouring to score points by using one Minister’s words against another. All we are asking now, however, is whether or not he still stands by his own. And what, in practice, does the Government plan to do about all or any of this.