Dear Editor,
I am happy that a high level team from the government which consisted of the Minister of State and the newly appointed REO, Mr Dennis Jaikarran, visited the owner of Hampton Court Rice Mills on Sunday, January 6th. It was my understanding that they were there to instruct the miller to pay the rice farmers of Region Two for their paddy, after a group of rice farmers met with the government about the issue of being owed long outstanding payments for their paddy by this miller.
The issue of farmers being paid for their paddy is not a new one. It started way back since the previous administration and no one seems to care to resolve this issue. This is not the only rice miller that owes the farmers for paddy purchased since 2018. There are many more in this region who I understand will be selling their rice mills to avoid paying the farmers.
I remember back in 1994, I was with a high-level team from the PPP government and the RPA at Hills Rice Mills at Vilvoorden. The high-level team was led by the late General Secretary, Mr Fazal Ali, after a group of farmers from Wakenaam Island met with the late President Dr Cheddi Jagan at Freedom House to complain about the issue of payments for their paddy which was sold to Hills Rice Mills over a year ago.
The late President instructed Mr Fazal Ali, the General Secretary of the RPA to meet with the management of that rice mill to negotiate the urgent payment for the affected rice farmers. I happened to be on that high level team at the bargaining table.
First of all we told the managing director of the mill, that we were there on behalf of the President to help solve the payment crisis after a group of rice farmers had met with him.
We had a list of the names and the amount of money owed to each rice farmer which was presented to him and his team of officers at the table. He acknowledged owing the farmers large sums of money for over a year and stated he would immediately pay in full, the farmers whom he owed $200,000. For those over that amount, he promised to pay them in full within a month’s time. The other farmers were owed over a million dollars each.
We then entered into an agreement which both parties signed to and after the signing we were instructed by the General Secretary and the President to follow up on the payments for the outstanding farmers which was duly honoured by the rice miller at Hills.
The Rice Factories Act was then passed in the National Assembly in 1994, to protect the rice farmers’ interests, however, no one from the RPA or GRDB is policing the act to ensure that that the farmers are being paid on time. This new government should use more drastic measures against all the millers who are fleecing the rice farmers of their hard sweat and blood. Rice farming is a back-breaking job since the farmers have to toil in the sun and rain to care their crops and at the end of the day, they are being robbed of their hard earned cash by some unscrupulous millers.
If the industry falters, all will suffer.
Yours faithfully,
Mohamed Khan
