Dear Editor,
The recent flooding this week may seem as business as usual for those who continually experience this very unhealthy situation whenever the rainy season hits, but for investors it results in a loss in confidence in the opportunities being offered by our nation. Every time flooding occurs the government is tasked with regaining investor confidence and preventing it from falling again. The new roads, the new buildings, the technological advances, and the transformational investments do not do enough to encourage long term sustainable investment if the Capital City and coastline continue to be under water during our rainy seasons. We are not Venice, the allure of romance in this situation does not exist. Floating garbage, unhealthy living conditions, and the resulting stench will damage the efforts being placed in many sectors of our economy, especially the tourism sector. We must as a nation demand that the cart not be placed before the horse.
The focus of the parliament must be on flood prevention before future nonrelated infrastructure works are carried out. Is there enough focus on this within this year’s budget? Many will argue that there isn’t, and who amongst us that really wants to see an end to this recurring cycle of flooding would disagree? It is an all hands-on deck moment that should provide the wake-up call and impetus needed for those in Parliament to insist that funds be shifted towards permanent flood prevention infrastructure investments. The moment is now and it is up to us to make the most of this urgent opportunity.
The health of our citizens will deteriorate, drinking water will become contaminated, new roads will decay faster, businesses will become less profitable, and our power grid will become more vulnerable to outages if the floods along the coast and within the capital are not permanently prevented. Our nation may be the fastest growing nation in the world, but investors will prefer to risk their dollar where confidence in economic stability and growth is stronger. The best way for our government to regain local and foreign investor confidence in our fragile economy is to significantly increase the focus on permanent flood prevention investments. What has been put in place today has resulted in limited success. It is now time to bring in the Dutch to work alongside our engineers to design, develop and implement an effective long-term solution. They are considered the best in the world at flood prevention and have previously designed the canal and drainage system that we have used for decades. As a nation we now have the time and resources needed to make permanent flood prevention a reality, our government must show our citizens that they also have the will to get it done quickly.