Dear Editor,
Salt water from the Atlantic Ocean came into the Mahaicony River, on the southern side of the public road where they have several coconut estates. Park, Retrieve, Pln Adventure, Pln Sanctuary, Guyana Grove and Champagne were badly damaged, and the coconut estate owners lost millions of dollars. Farmers made several complaints to the Ministry of Agriculture, the MMA/ADA management, the Mahaicony-Abary NDC and the Regional Chairman of Region 5, West Coast Berbice, but to no avail.
A canal from Burma passes in front of these estates and enters the Mahaicony River. There is a bridge across the canal at Huntly, Mahaicony, and this bridge needs repairs, so that farmers can cross over and go to their estates. After ten years of begging the Minister sent the MMA/ADA authority in December, to inspect the bridge. They promised to supply the boards to floor the bridge, since the ones on it were rotten; however, these have not been sent. Farmers have to take off their clothes and swim the canal to go to their various estates and farms.
On the southern side of the canal dam from Huntly to Airy Hall, about 150 rods, they are planting cash crops, and rice farmers can’t use the dam to go to Burma for fertilizers and seed paddy. The MMA/ADA authority gave the cash crop farmers authority to fence the dam so no tractors can use it, and many trailers do not have a licence to run on the road. Farmers were glad to use the dam because it is a government reserve.
The farmers applied for kokers at Huntly dam, Sanctuary dam and the Northern Reserve Canal which passes through Pln Adventure and other estates in 2008, and they were also promised a land excavator for four days, to irrigate the various estates. The farmers went to the NDIA office in Georgetown and were told that two excavators were on pontoons on the Abary bridge doing some work, and when this work was finished, one would be sent. However, none was sent. A farmer who has an interest in the matter went to the office several times and was told no machine was available, yet they published in the newspaper that they had 60 land excavators. They did the NRC canal in 2008, but since then they have never been back. Farmers get disgusted by the constant prevarications by the NDIA. They have tubes available at Onverwagt, West Berbice, but they don’t want to give the tubes and if the farmers don’t get these, their estates cannot be drained.
Now a cash crop farmer claims he has been given permission to fence the reserve dam next to a farmer’s estate; the farmer has made several complaints to MMA/ADA, but no one has come to look at what has been done.
Yours faithfully,
Zenadeen Jameer
