Minister Rohee meets with Cotton Tree, No.5 residents
CABINET members yesterday continued their annual exercise, this time across communities along the Region Five landscape (from the Berbice River Bridge to Central Mahaicony), to solicit the views and concerns of persons at the community level.
Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee met with residents of No.5 and Cotton Tree Villages, where a number of concerns were raised, including drainage and irrigation, rice millers that are delinquent in paying farmers, deplorable dams leading to the rice fields at Cotton Tree, firearm licences, unavailability of landline phones, inadequate supply of potable water and the need for a fence around a playfield at No.5 Village.
Responding to the concerns, Minister Rohee visited the site of the playfield and assured the residents that their needs will be considered at the level of Cabinet.
With respect to landline phones, the Minister said that the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph (GT&T) Company is not owned by Government and as such, it cannot dictate how or where the service should be distributed.
As it relates to the conditions of the dams which have worsened due to the continuous rainfall, affecting both rice and cash crop farmers, the Home Affairs Minister said that while the construction of an “all-weather” road, as requested, will be too expensive, possibilities can be explored for the construction of a “farm-to-market” road.

Moreover, a representative from the Mahaica Mahaicony Abary/Agricultural Development Authority (MMA/ADA) said that efforts to repair the dam are underway.
He assured that the issue of delinquent rice millers, drainage and irrigation and other issues affecting the farming community will be discussed with Minister of Agriculture Robert Persaud.
“Cabinet members have a collective responsibility in addressing the concerns of Guyanese,” the Minister said.
The issue of adequate supply of potable water was addressed by a representative from the Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI).
The Administration has already held several outreaches thus far for 2010, to engage the grassroots in the process of policy-making so as to make interventions to better their living standards.
Led by President Jagdeo, outreaches were held in Regions Three, Six, and Ten. (GINA)