Dear Editor,
Mr. Mohamed Khan’s letter captioned “Government has seen land distribution as vital” (07.03.11) dealt with the legal side of land distribution and allocation through government’s policies but failed to point out a consistent land-use and development or settlement programme for agricultural or other use of new lands. Policies for distribution should be combined with programmes for land-use and development.
Real infrastructural building that would benefit Guyanese communities and domestic individuals who want to take up careers as new farmers and entrepreneurs in such areas as cash-crop production; agri-business and agri-processing should be advertised to the public.
A casual visit to the Lands and Surveys (and Mines) shows that all of the coastal lands and especially on the river-banks have already been taken up, save perhaps for some parcels of infrastructure-less, un-drained or un-irrigated lands behind the national airport.
It was not too long ago that a prominent rice farmer could not obtain an extra 1000 acres of land to expand his rice cultivation. It was felt that he was too large. In the forestry sector, all of Guyana’s hinterlands are fast becoming huge timber-grant concessions without much purpose on the horizon, save for sheer exports of raw logs and less value-added that could be taxed and allocated to build domestic infrastructure needed to complement government’s land distribution and allocation policies in a real way.
A national land register for effective land administration was promised a long time ago, since the mid-1990s. Such a register would be a vital developmental tool as Mr. Khan observes. How-ever, it would serve Guyanese entrepreneurs if a rational land use and various infrastructure, agricultural, industrial and development programmes were in place and launched as part of government’s country-wide development programme.
Yours faithfully,
Ganga Prasad Ramdas