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Sep 09, 2014 News
Despite falling victim to Opposition inflicted budget cuts in the Parliament for two consecutive years, Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy is still optimistic about the Cunha Canal project as an important support infrastructure to the Northern Relief Channel at Hope.
The Cunha Canal is a project that is approved by the Governments of Guyana and Norway and the World Bank as the trustee of the Guyana REDD+ Investment Fund (GRIF).
“We have completed some of the hurdles to put in place the Cunha project, but one hurdle to overcome was the financing which was coming from GRIF and has to be passed in the National Assembly,” Minister Ramsammy said yesterday.
The other hurdle was land which has to be reacquired by the Barama Company Limited. The Minister explained that Cunha has to go through what is at present the Barama compound.
When Barama acquired that area in 1989, the company closed off the Cunha Canal and redirected the flow of water to Sarah Johanna.
“So a small canal had to take up more water and was unable to do so… What we are doing at Cunha is restoring it to direct access to the Demerara River,” the Minister said.
The Ministry has successfully negotiated with Barama to reacquire the land. The timber company, on account of its national obligations, has agreed to give up the land for the price of one dollar. The Cunha Canal will allow the Hope Canal to achieve its goal of eliminating routine opening of the Lama and Maduni sluices. Minister Ramsammy expressed the hope that when this project comes up again in the 2015 national budget “responsible politicians will allow it through”.
This project will not only benefit residents of the Mahaica/Mahaicony/Abary areas, but places such as Laluni and Kuru Kururu will also benefit, as they will be drained by the canal through surface drainage.
Residents, particularly the East Bank Demerara farming community, will also benefit because when water cannot be discharged it accumulates in the conservancy and backs up on the East Bank.
“It is a very significant project… Farmers at Craig, Land of Canaan and other areas on the East Bank would also benefit from this project,” the Agriculture Minister said.
As a result of the drainage and irrigation work being done by the Ministry, the Lama and Maduni sluices were not opened in 2013, and thus far in 2014, the need for them to be open has not arisen. “I am proud of the work that we have been doing. In 2013 there was enough rainfall that would have necessitated the opening of those sluices, but we did not have to, because we managed our water levels well last year…With just four months to go for this year, we do not anticipate that the need would arise to open it,” Minister Ramsammy posited.
The Cunha Canal rehabilitation project is a part of Guyana’s Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) adaptation initiatives and was listed as one of the priority projects to benefit from financing under the GRIF.
Currently, Guyana is also building a $3.6B canal at Hope on East Coast Demerara, to relieve the stress on the East Demerara Water Conservancy, a facility behind the many housing schemes and farmlands along that swath of land.
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