THE main Opposition People's National Congress Reform (PNC/R) yesterday said it was sceptical that President Bharrat Jagdeo will make available to the public, the contents of the report from a probe into the cause of the breach of the East Demerara Conservancy dam at Cane Grove, East Coast Demerara.

In the wake of widespread flooding as a result of the breach, the President promised a full investigation.

In a statement earlier this week, the PNC/R claimed Mr. Jagdeo had no intention of launching an inquiry into the Cane Grove breach.

The Office of the President Thursday announced the appointment of Director of Regional Services at the Guyana Sugar Corporation, Dr. Harold Davis Jr., to head a five-man special investigative team to determine the cause of the breach.

At a news conference yesterday, General Secretary of the PNC/R, Mr. Oscar Clarke repeated party claims that Mr. Jagdeo had "earned a reputation for making promises that he and the regime do not intend to fulfil".

He claimed the report of a probe into the 1996 sea defence breach at Mon Repos, East Coast Demerara had not been published.

Clarke was backed by party and Opposition Leader, Mr. Desmond Hoyte and PNC/R members Mr. Stanley Ming and Ms. Myrna Peterkin who were also at the news conference.

Hoyte said that "after four years, (the Mon Repos report) has not seen the light of day as far as the public is concerned."

He said he had to accept that the members of the Cane Grove probe team "are professional people and that they will act properly and will not allow themselves to be influenced by extraneous circumstances or by persons who might have an axe to grind..."

"Given this experience, the Guyanese people are not likely to believe that, even if Mr. Jagdeo does set up an independent, professional Commission of Inquiry, he would accept and publish its report," Clarke argued.

He repeated charges in the earlier party statement which Mr. Robert Persaud, Information Liaison to the President, has rejected.

In a statement, Persaud had said that the public "has grown accustomed to the fulminations and misrepresentations of the facts by the PNC."

Clarke accused the President of making many more promises that have not been fulfilled and said the PNC/R will continue to press him to keep his promises to citizens.

He said the Opposition party regretted the plight of the hardworking farmers and other citizens affected by the flooding at Cane Grove.

"For them it is a great catastrophe; but people can hardly say that they are surprised," he asserted.

He noted that two years ago, farmers were devastated when similar floods occurred on the East Coast as a result of the failure of the same conservancy dam. According to him, farmers at that time complained about the sloppy and unprofessional execution of the project that had been implemented to shore up the dam.

He said farmers have pointed out, among other things, that in the course of the work, contractors had destroyed the natural flood defences such as bamboo groves that grew along the dam.

Clarke said that within recent years, there have been many serious floods on the East Coast Demerara, West Coast Demerara, West Coast Berbice and the Essequibo Coast.

These floods were in the main due to the failure of sea and river defences and the lack of maintenance of drainage infrastructure, he said.

"They occurred even though the regime had squandered millions of dollars of taxpayers money on projects to prevent such floods," he argued.

"Our farming communities have paid a heavy price for incompetent and sub-standard work," he alleged.