Dochfour farmers and residents, who have long pleaded for suitable drainage and irrigation structures, are making a renewed plea, noting that the previous PPP/C administration had not heeded their cries.
Residents are also calling for a foot bridge across the Hope Canal to enable access to their farms as well as making it easier for residents to travel from Hope Estate to Dochfour and other communities and vice versa. Residents said yesterday that it is costly for farmers, schoolchildren and seniors to take taxis out of the Hope Estate and travel the long distance to the lone bridge across the canal to go to school and the post office, in the case of the seniors, to access their pensions. According to them, the cost is about $1,000 to come out of the estate and return.
Farmer Roy Doodnauth recalled that they had pleaded with officials of the former PPP/C administration for a footbridge across the Hope Canal to link Dochfour and Hope Estate.
“The bridge important man, real important,” farmer Nazim Ali said as he noted that it would be convenient for schoolchildren and farmers, many of whom cross the canal in small boats to get to their farms on the other side.
Doodnauth said that some persons do not have their own boats and have to depend on others which hampers their activities. He also noted the high cost for pensioners who have to travel out of the Hope Estate to the bridge then to the Clonbrook post office to collect their pensions. Children from Hope who attend the Ann’s Grove Secondary school as well as the primary school also have to pay a high cost, he noted. “We ah beg them,” to build the bridge, he said.
He also noted that farmers are still affected by the poor drainage and irrigation system which was exacerbated since the construction of the Hope Canal.
“Every time rain fall we get flood, every time sun, we ain get no water,” he said. “We who solely depend on farming, we ah de one who suffer,” he asserted.
Although a drain was dug after their pleas, it is not sufficient, he said. He also pointed out that tubing that was supposed to be installed to link the drain to a bigger canal is just lying unused. He noted that because there was no proper planning from the inception, expansion of the drain would affect some residents and one problem would be solved but in the process, another problem would be created.
