Dear Editor,
At the last Statutory Meeting of the Region Two Regional Democratic Council (R.D.C) (Pomeroon/Supenaam) held at the R.D.C Boardroom on Tuesday 12/4/2011, it was revealed by Mr Pooran Persaud, a People’s Progressive Party Councillor and Chairman of the Local Government and Cooperative Committee, a Statutory Committee of the R.D.C, that the Devonshire Castle Cooperative is indebted to the Anna Regina Town Council to the tune of more than $20,000,000 (twenty million dollars). The said story was carried in the Guyana Times of Sunday 17/4/2011.
Well this announcement is not news to the councillors and to many of the staff at both the Regional Democratic Council and also those at the Office of the Anna Regina Municipality and maybe some members of the public. This revelation has been made time and time again. This sum of money is for rates for the area of land that is cultivated with rice and this sum stated is for the Co-op only. There are other farmers who are also heavily indebted to the Water Users Association with the said Municipality, and also many other farmers within the five Neighbourhood Democratic Councils that have been delinquent for many years.
Information received from sources from within the Local Government Ministry is that the total amount of arrears due and payable to the state by rice farmers in this region is in excess of $150,000,000 (one hundred and fifty million dollars).
What is surprising is that the question has been asked at various meetings of the R.D.C why no positive action is being taken to have these sums of money collected by the bodies authorized to do so i.e. the N.D.C, the municipality and the WUA, bearing in mind all three of them have the tools at their disposal.
Whenever this issue of outstanding money owed to the state by rice farmers is brought up, the Chairman of the R.D.C, Mr. Ali Baksh would say that the Local Government Ministry has given instructions that efforts must be made by them to have these monies collected.
I have on numerous occasions at the level of the RDC Meeting and the Agriculture Drainage and Irrigation and Works meetings said that it is not the policy of the Region Two Administration to collect money due and payable from rice farmers and this matter is not given attention and or priority by the persons that are paid to do so.
Yours faithfully,
Archie W Cordis
