– Minister Baksh
MINISTER within the Ministry of Agriculture, Alli Baksh and Chief Executive Officer of the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA), Lionel Wordsworth, on Saturday last, met with workers of the Authority attached to the offices of Foulis, Buxton, Friendship, Enterprise and Strathspey to inform them of the implementation of a system to regularise them and to listen to their concerns. Minister Baksh said that agriculture plays a very significant role in the region and, as such, emphasis is needed on proper drainage and irrigation for farmers.
“Because of the climatic conditions and global warming, we in Guyana experience difficulties…it has recently become difficult for us to predict when we have rain or sun as the scientific ways of determining that no longer yields exactness,” Minister Baksh said.
He said government will be investing more than half a billion dollars annually on the community drainage and irrigation programme. As such, NDIA officials have embarked upon a campaign to regularise its workers.
“We are verifying workers and the communities they are attached to…they will be required to submit their bank account numbers to the ministry…they will be given the option of how to work, whether they will continue with the current system of 15 days on and 15 off or not,” Minister Baksh said.
“We cannot, at no time, encourage complacency…workers should treat their job as a serious responsibility so as to provide the level of service that will bring success, not only to the programme, but to the industry by extension…we have had reports of workers who go on site and lime…we will be coming down hard on this,” Minister Baksh said.
Wordsworth said that in light of the Community Drainage and Irrigation Programme (CDIP), which is expected to commence soon nationally, a series of things will be happening.
“The first phase we will embark on a national phase of verification for all workers …this entails going to the communities to verify the individuals…in doing so we will compile a database of NDIA workers along with their employment track record and bank account number for payments,” Wordsworth said.

He added that this serves to regularise workers and in the process will now see them coming under the supervision of the Neighbourhood Democratic Councils.
“This step is taken as a measure to stamp out corrupt and dishonest practices amongst workers, specifically between foremen, who do not have the authority to employ but do so, and engage themselves in other dishonest means in the compilation of payment sheets,” Wordsworth said.
Some of the concerns raised by the workers when they met with the officials include clearance of central drainage structures in Enterprise for farmers; better monitoring of the drainage system; late payments made to workers and better cooperation between workers and management.
In responding to their concerns, Wordsworth said the two central canals in Enterprise were dredged but the issue is maintenance.
“We have spent millions of dollars to execute the major infrastructural works, not only in Enterprise but also around the country. However, workers do not diligently execute maintenance works,” Wordsworth said.
He added that a project will begin in a few weeks which will address all the infrastructure works in the area so that relief can come to farmers.
Meanwhile, Minister Baksh and Wordsworth, while in the Enterprise area, used the opportunity to visit the central canals and interact with residents and NDIA workers.
At this meeting, Minister Baksh said that whilst a machine will be used because of the magnitude of the works to be done, he is depending on the workers to maintain what will be done as complementary measures.
NDIA workers committed to work on the project diligently to bring relief to farmers of the area.