By Nicosia Smith
Lack of access, high cost of items and dearth of jobs could see the demise of Ituni, if not corrected soon. On a visit to the community last week, Stabroek News could also see obvious signs of physical decay.
Over the years, the Linden-Ituni corridor has caused many travellers headaches as well as heartaches; the deplorable road is also keeping Ituni decades behind in development.
The once-thriving community is succumbing to inaccessibility with many of its residents leaving. Cedric Murphy of Paw Variety Store in the small community told Stabroek News last week, “The road is the biggest problem right now.”
For example, he explained that vehicles were afraid to traverse the road too often, and this impacted on business because the supply trucks did not visit as often.In addition, he noted that the cost of transporting the goods to the community was high, and businesses were forced to put a mark-up that would allow them to make a profit. The return fare for Ituni passengers is $2,000 per person by minibus for the 36 miles of travel from the mining town of Linden. Besides the fare there is an additional fee for bags and cargo.
By contrast, the more than 60 miles of travel from Linden to Georgetown is $700 by minibus with no cost for bags unless they occupy an extra seat.
Road woes
Minibus driver Kester Alves told this newspaper that during the rainy season the trip from Linden to Ituni took some two and a half hours, since the huge water-logged holes and the heavy slush created by the wet sand make it difficult to traverse the road.
Alves said that during the rainy season, some minibuses did not work and this affected residents. During the dry season, as at present, the trip takes one and a half hours, but passengers are still not spared any of the bumping that goes with the very rough ride.
There is no stretch of the road that affords a smooth ride as the driver must swerve to escape gravel, bumps that are like hills, erosion in sections of the road and the thick sand in some cases.
“The road does make my body shake,” lamented 44-year-old businessman Murphy.
Alves would like to see the road graded every month, but Murphy believes that it is the grading of the road that has contributed to its current state. According to the businessman, the road needs to be rebuilt not graded.
The Linden Economic Advance-ment Programme (LEAP) in collaboration with the Ministry of Public Works will be conducting road works on a section of the road from Ituni to Kwakwani, but Ituni residents are calling for the rebuilding of the Linden to Ituni section of the road.
More jobs needed
Murphy said if the roads were improved then business would improve, because items would be less expensive. He commented that business, “is not too bright… the community has a money problem.” He also posited that once the road was improved it would encourage more persons to invest in the community. He also suggested the setting up of a toll station or a check-in point for visitors to the community. Small business owner Junior Fraser also said that, “right now business is very slow,” noting that, “people not cutting wood.”
According to Fraser, “people need more jobs… women need work.” The community of Ituni depends greatly on logging for its economic sustenance and during this newspaper’s visit some small scale loggers were not operating because of a conflict that had arisen where persons were cutting in concessions that didn’t belong to them and personnel from the Guyana Forestry Commis-sion (GFC) were in the area monitoring activities.
Murphy admits that, “you can’t vex with the forestry,” but in defence of the loggers he asked, “The children, how are they going to eat?”
According to him, sometimes the concessions that these loggers are assigned to cut from are 10 to 14 hours away from the community and tractors cannot access the location. The logging association at Ituni has some 86,000 acres of forest allotted to it, where some 55 members have the right to harvest. To become a member the person must be a resident of Ituni and own equipment. This newspaper understands that some five to six new members are added every year and to log legally in Ituni one must be a member of the association or have a concession of one’s own.
A logger, who doesn’t own his own concession, told this newspaper that he applied to the association for membership since 2002 and three weeks ago he sent in another application. He was one of the loggers affected by the GFC monitoring exercise.
There is a high demand for membership from the association, and this newspaper was told that new members are admitted based on the availability of land within the acreage allotted to the association.
The Linden Economic Advance-ment Fund (LEAF) to its credit has loaned $21.9M in small and medium loans to the forestry sector of Ituni and $665,000 in micro-loans to the retail sector.
