Residents of Bath Housing Scheme and No. 11 Village yesterday braved the rain to demand reimbursements for crops lost to floodwaters, in a protest led by the Alliance for Change (AFC) at Fort Wellington.
The West Berbice residents claimed that most of the flooding, which they suffered during last month, was not as a result of rainfall alone. According to them, GuySuCo pumped water out of the fields and it got into their homes and crops, causing them to suffer major losses. Prompted by AFC presidential candidate Khemraj Ramjattan, the residents promised that the protest would continue until they are compensated.
The protestors converged in front of the Regional Office in Region Five around 1 pm and chanted, “We want reimbursement.” Some of the placards they carried read: “We Need Flood Relief and Relief from Flood,” “We Demand Reimbursement for our losses,” “Seeds are not Payment,” “Government and GuySuCo are responsible for flooding” and “Millions Spent on D&I and Still We Are Flooded.”
The residents, who said they have no other means of earning an income, lost several banks of celery, eschallot and other cash crops. They lamented that Regional Chairman Harrinarine Baldeo never visited the area and was never available to listen to their complaints. The protestors shouted that Baldeo was “hiding in his office.”
However, shortly after he came out and joined them on the road and started taking photographs. He and Ramjattan also exchanged words.
When residents shouted that they were not seeing him during the flood, Baldeo responded that he had undergone an eye surgery and was not well.
A resident of Bath told this newspaper that they live in a low area and whenever it rains they would be affected by flooding and mosquito infestations. She pointed out that the situation was causing the children to get sick and nobody was visiting to “spray the area.”
Ramkarran Jainauth, 64, said he depends on his garden but “GuySuCo water causing flood” and he lost his celery crop. He said he and his wife and are both “sickly” and he has to undergo a heart surgery.
In an invited comment, Ramjattan told this newspaper that the protest was organised to make demands to government and GuySuCo to reimburse the residents for their losses.
He said that after the flooding, the AFC documented the losses and was told that the residents would be paid or an answer would have been given during last week. Ramjattan pointed out that “many people did not come because of threats [by government officials] that they would be locked up and they would not get their reimbursements.”
Nevertheless, the other residents “showed strength and they came out in unity…,” he noted.
He said too that two sluices are operating in the region; at Onverwagt and D’ Edward villages and “for years we have been asking for the rehabilitation of three other sluices… But they are not utilising the regional money for that.”
According to him, residents are fearful that if the two sluices do not work when the May/June rains come, they would have the same problem. He said too that GuySuCo was not “paying the people so they are going into farming.” He accused the industry of deliberately “flooding them, so they can go back and work for GuySuCo.
Baldeo told Stabroek News that the residents were asking for compensation but they in fact needed “assistance.” He said he held a meeting with a delegation from the area and subsequently invited GuySuCo to another meeting with them. At the meeting, they explained to the residents “how the system is operated… they are putting the blame on GuySuCo but it is not their [GuySuCo’s] fault alone.”
He said the managers of the sugar industry explained that even if they pump the water it cannot affect the residents. “It is a network of canals that leads to the main facade that would include from Cotton Tree coming down,” he said. “The scheme was designed like that… the times have changed and maybe we have to revisit some of these thing they have been requesting,” he added, referring to the rehabilitation of the sluices.
He pointed out that government is presently addressing the matter. He mentioned too that “we have a changed weather pattern now; we don’t have the ordinary type of rainfall.”
The Chairman said too that Blairmont recorded eight inches of rainfall and recently the region had four inches. He said too that nobody was instructed to stop them from protesting because “it was their right.”
