Stabroek News once again carries a letter about the MMA from Bramdeow Singh (‘Instead of vouchers for fertilizers the money should go to MMA to clear the canals,’ January 16). We expected that by now, in light of previous misconceived letters from this same gentleman, that Stabroek would have wanted to check with us before publishing. A recent letter from Mr Singh claiming that land planes were rotting at MMA when in fact they were sold to and being used at Skeldon by GuySuCo is easily recalled. That said, we would like to state the following regarding this last letter
1. The $400M special assistance programme for the rice industry, is a separate and special programme that saw wide and extensive consultations with the farmers, who themselves decided on the fertilizer vouchers among other initiatives.
2. That the vouchers should go to the farmers who actually cultivate the lands and not landlords was a clear and mandatory position taken at the consultations. MMA supported this position
3. Government, through the Ministry of Agriculture, has been providing resources for the rehabilitation of the D&I systems in the MMA project area (Abary-Berbice block)
4. Over 90% of the area has been rehabilitated and is currently under monthly maintenance. We expect the beneficiaries to contribute to the maintenance of these channels by paying their D&I rates which are currently $1250/acre per crop.
5. All the rehab works to the D&I systems (over 500 miles of channels) would have been completed by now had we not had to move machinery to the critical Mahaica/Mahaicony and Mahaicony/Abary blocks to deal with the current ‘El Nino’ situation.
6. Although they don’t admit it, we are aware that many persons are renting out their MMA lands. Bramdeow Singh himself rents his MMA allocated lands.
While we will always welcome additional resources for the MMA, we are of the view that Mr Singh’s letter is really a self-serving one.
Yours faithfully,
Rudolph Gajraj
Mahaica Mahaicony Abary Agri
Development Authority
