THE Regional Administration in Region Two (Pomeroon/Supenaam) has taken issue with a Kaieteur News article, published on September 29 under the caption ‘Farmers calling for the removal of the Region Two Administration’.
Regional Vice-Chairman Vishnu Samaroo said the Region has the best drainage and irrigation (D&I) system in the country and has always maintained dams in rice growing areas, so that farmers can transport their paddy from fields to factories.
He said the publication was very misleading when it referred to the maintenance of critical structures for the transportation of paddy.
Mr. Samaroo said the Administration, which spends some $100M every year to maintain the D&I infrastructure by constructing revetments, box culverts and maintaining access dams, has never failed to do maintenance on the critical structures in time for harvesting.
He said the Administration has also employed 365 contractors to maintain D&I trenches and canals across the Essequibo Coast.
Samaroo said, when rice harvesting started in the Region this year, rain was still falling very often and dams were soft and muddy and that prevented the Regional Administration from doing any maintenance work with machinery.
He said the administration, with a limited fleet of old machines, tried to fix the dams to assist farmers despite the rainy weather.
Samaroo recalled that, at a recent meeting at Anna Regina Town Hall, where Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Robert Persaud was present, a certain group of farmers complained about the condition of the dams although the Regional Administration was, at the time, doing work to level those which were broken up by the same farmers when they drove their tractors during the rainy season to check on the growth of their fields.
He said that group is never satisfied with the hard work done by the Administration and is benefiting from all the inputs to upkeep the D&I network on Essequibo Coast.
Samaroo claimed that the Regional Administration, headed by Regional Chairman, Mr. Alli Baksh, has transformed the Region in every area of development over the past 17 years.
The Vice-Chairman said, before October 5, 1992, the rice industry was in decline because many access routes had been abandoned and production was very low.
“The good and careful management of the drainage and irrigation system by the Administration has led to some 32,500 acres being cultivated and producing one million bags of paddy each crop,” said Samaroo.