Dear Editor,
On Sunday, April 24th 2016, I received a telephone call from several rice farmers in Region Two, that a certain aquaculture owner was digging the road shoulder with his Hymac, leading from in front of the main conservancy irrigation canal which is servicing 35,500 acres of rice lands from Charity to Supenaam and was laying 10-inch PVC pipes to carry water into his fish ponds which are about half mile long at Burn Bush, Red Lock, Anna Regina. I then decided to travel with my car to the site to have a look at their complaints. As I crossed over the Red Lock high bridge, I saw his hymac indeed digging the road shoulder and his workmen were laying the pipe lines and covering them with earth.
I did not intervene, I parked my car under a tree not far from where the machine and men were working to observe what they were doing. Two of his workmen who I had known for a long time came under the tree where my car was parked. I asked them what they were doing, they told me that they were working with the owner of the fish ponds to lay pipelines. About half an hour later I saw the owner come up with his mini bus. I did not ask him anything, he stopped and started to walk around where the work was being done. He drove to his fish ponds, about 15 minutes later he drove out. I then decided to drive to the location of his ponds. I saw that a concrete culvert about 30 inches in circumference and 25 feet long had been constructed from the distributing canal to his fish ponds.
This culvert was supplying water to several fish ponds and a large tract of agriculture land, which was behind the Three Doors sluice which was constructed to block and maintain the level of water for the rice farmers in Region Two. This water was coming from the Tapakuma Lake or the Dawa Pumping station. During rice cultivating seasons, two of these doors will be open to build the water level in the main conservancy canal so the farmers from Charity to Supenaam can get gravity feed into their lands and avoid them having to pump water, which is an additional cost on the farmer’s income. According to the drainage and irrigation laws, no farmer or private person is allowed to construct any regulator or culvert across the embankment of the main conservancy canal.
The Minister of Agriculture, Mr Noel Holder, recently announced some of the emergency measures which would be put in place to alleviate the irrigation water problem. Placing these 10-inch PVC pipes and drawing water from the main canal will create more hardship on the farmers who depend on the gravity feed into their lands. It was also reported that a number of regulator doors were damaged via tampering by rice farmers during the long dry season and the main canal water is discharging into the Atlantic Ocean.
The matter with the illegal construction of the concrete culvert by the fish ponds owner was raised by the former regional vice chairwoman and captain of Mainstay/Whyaka, Mrs. Mary Williams, at the Cabinet outreach with the Hon Prime Minister, Mr Moses Nagamootoo and the Hon. Minister of Agriculture, Mr Noel Holder, at the Anna Regina Multilateral School.
Yours faithfully,
Mohamed Khan.