The team investigating last month's breach of the East Demerara Conservancy Dam aback of Cane Grove is expected to formally submit a preliminary report by next Wednesday. Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr Roger Luncheon had told reporters at an earlier press briefing that the report would have been available by the first week in December.

However, he told reporters at a post-Cabinet press briefing yesterday that Cabinet had made a slight amendment to the team's terms of reference that now required it to also recommend ways of addressing the more vulnerable areas of the dam that have been uncovered during its investigation.

The team was established to investigate the cause of the breach, which resulted in extensive flooding in the Cane Grove area. It is headed by Dr Harold Davis, GUYSUCO's director of agricultural services and involves professional engineers from the Guyana Defence Force, the MMA/ADA, the River and Sea Defences Unit and an independent engineer.

Luncheon said that one result of the team's work was the identification of "the rather parlous state of the dam" as well as the identification of "a number of high-risk areas."

Commenting on a related concern about the erosion threatening the residents at Charity on the Pomeroon River, Dr Luncheon said that the Public Works Ministry would be appointing a multi-disciplined team to work with the regional administration and the residents of the area to determine what was happening and to provide options for government action.

The Head of the Presidential Secretariat said too that the Works Ministry had also commissioned the Transport and Harbours Department to do a study on the channel, which is believed to be shifting and contributing to the erosion of the land.