The Ministry of Agriculture commissioned a G$650 million pump station at Canal No. 1, Bagotville, West Bank Demerara, on Wednesday. The National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA) carried out the project, which is expected to strengthen flood protection and support agricultural production in Region Three. The ministry describes it as part of a G$23 billion drainage infrastructure programme aimed at reducing flooding across the region.

The station has four drainage pumps with a combined capacity of 580 cubic feet per second, and is expected to improve drainage for about 5,000 acres of land. That is a larger scheme than the one first announced. When the contract was signed in April 2022, the project was expected to serve about 3,000 acres. Later descriptions referred to two pumping units, each able to discharge 150 cubic feet a second. The completed project includes two additional pumps and a new community centre valued at about G$60 million.

Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha said the station would allow round-the-clock drainage. A high-level canal will discharge directly into the Demerara River, and he put planned spending in Region Three at G$3 billion. He said the facility would protect livelihoods, reduce the economic cost of flooding and improve the region's resilience to increasingly unpredictable weather. He asked residents to look after the asset. He said its continued effectiveness would depend on proper maintenance and cooperation between residents and the authorities.

Much of Guyana's populated coast lies below high tide level, so drainage there depends on pumps and on timing discharges to the tides. A station that discharges into the river at any hour gives farmers more control than one limited to the low-tide window.

NDIA Chairman Lionel Wordsworth said the station is one of six built in Region Three over the past six years, and forms part of a wider drainage programme. It is among 18 stations the NDIA is building across the country. Minister within the Ministry of Agriculture Vikash Ramkissoon said the new station was particularly important for the Canal No. 1 area. He added that such facilities are needed to support sustainable agricultural growth. Regional Chairman Sheik Mohamed Inshan Ayube also spoke, and the event was presented as an example of cooperation between central government, the NDIA and regional bodies.

The station opened later than planned. In June 2024 Mustapha said it was expected to be finished by the end of July that year. Officials gave reasons for delays at the site earlier in 2024. They cited difficulty removing squatters, negotiating with residents and rebuilding a community centre. The commissioning came more than four years after the contract was signed.

The ministry places the station within a larger spending plan. Mustapha said G$81.9 billion, or 72.3 per cent of the ministry's G$113.2 billion budget for 2026, is allocated to drainage and irrigation, up from G$9 billion in 2020. A further G$23 billion is planned over the next one to two years for high-level canals, internal drainage channels and protective embankments. In 2024 Mustapha said the government intends to build structures similar to the Hope Canal on the East Coast of Demerara in Regions Three, Five and Six.

The investment follows repeated flood damage to crops and livestock on the coast. Region Three has a mix of farming and residential communities, and a pump station serves both. Farmers who plant cash crops need fields that drain within a day or two of heavy rain, because standing water for longer can destroy a harvest. The same water that threatens crops also reaches homes and roads.

The figures set out by the ministry give a measure of the commitment, but they do not show how much flooding the new capacity will prevent. That will be tested in the next wet season, when the station operates under sustained rainfall for the first time.

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