The PPP/C has held over 50 meetings in Berbice to hear first-hand the issues affecting supporters and this outreach exercise will soon spread to other regions of the country, according to opposition leader Bharrat Jagdeo.
Jagdeo who held a press conference hours before he was scheduled to leave the country for a series of engagements overseas, indicated that next on the list is Region Five followed by Region Two. He said the party is aiming to target all the coastal regions before heading to Linden and other parts of Region Ten and the hinterland.
According to Jagdeo, during the outreach in Berbice, party officials not only talked to supporters but listened to their concerns on the contradictions of the present government, local government elections, the just concluded elections and the future.
He said that there is a “huge huge” concern about the way the country is going. “They are very disappointed that the promises that APNU made when they contested elections that those promises were not upheld. Promises like doubling the old age pension in the first hundred days,” he said.
He said that during the meetings he spoke to persons who were once recipients of the water and electricity subsidies. “So now they are very very concerned that they will be in a net worse off position than before the $3,000 increase that was given on their pensions at budget time,” he said.
Jagdeo told the media that concerns were also raised about the scrapped $10,000 education cash grant.
The media were told that in Berbice there were two groups of people who expressed the most concern about economic issues and the well-being of the region itself; the rice farmers and the sugar workers.
With regard to rice, he said farmers expressed concern at the drop in the price for paddy that the millers were paying. “While there is a glut on the market some people are benefiting because of lower price for rice but this will not last because the next crop when many of the farmers do not go back to the farms then there is going to be major problems,” he said.
Jagdeo blamed this situation in the loss of the Venezuela market. “The plight of the rice farmers is a terrible one …” he said.