The PPP’s Black Bush Polder project continues to be a boon for the people of the Corentyne and Guyana as a whole.A few months ago, I went on an excursion to the Polders via the Adventure entrance. My first surprise was to discover that most of the residents remaining in the Polders have moved from the back streets closer to the public road because of the constant rains and migration of the young generation to the urban centers. The other surprise was that most of the other residents, older citizens, have moved back to their village of birth.
This was troubling to me because I was a frequent visitor to the polders, having famil, and class mates from the Polders. I tracked down some of my family members as well as friends to find out the reason for the exodus. I was pleasantly surprised when I was informed that the rice farmers had found a win, win situation. The large rice producers offered to rent the lands from the farmers, thus giving them monthly cheques for their fifteen acre parcels. The farmers, some of them women, but most of whom are of retirement age, were more than happy for the opportunity to rent the lands. They were also happy to sell their machineries as well. In addition to renting their lands, some of the farmers were offered employment by the entrepreneurial rice producers.
The more efficient use of the land by the expert producers has led to an increase in rice production and decrease in prices to local consumers.
With a wide variety of jobs, such as construction and GuySuCo, available to the citizenry, the farmers who left the polders were immediately inducted into the work force. The more populated areas, with their more convenient facilities, such as stores and hospitals, have led to a better quality of life as well.
Renting the land provided the farmers with a better deal than what occurred to the Midwestern farmers of the USA who were force to sell their lands to giant corporations because of low prices for grains and at a time when land prices were most depressed.
The ex farmers have mentioned over and over to me their thanks to Bharrat Jagdeo and the PPP for the bonanza the Polders have delivered to them. The rent from the land is the major source of income for some of them
Only a Bharrat could have envisioned a project like the polders that would become an ATM 50 years after it was launched. No other project in the history of the land can boast continuous prosperity from the day it was opened to the current day and projected to be prosperous into the indefinite future. This project wrote the book on human environmental sustainable development. Three generations have profited from Bharrat’s dream and many more will do so as well.
Let me be fair to the PNC and list their accomplishments in the Corentyne. Firstly, Forbes fabricated two toll gates and employed approximately thirty people accompanied by armed personnel to seized food items and harrass Indians. The PNC’s second accomplishment was to fabricate and install several arches that are still there. Moses (Nagga) can hang around on the arches so that we can take “selfies”. Does Moses and the PNC/APNU-AFC have plans to reactivate the toll gates?
The AFC toll gate record in parliament preventing the extending of the Cheddi Jagan Airpot, the Amaila Hydropower Project and the Specialty Hospital demonstrates their hate for progress. Anything with ‘P’ in front of it reminds them of the PPP and they want to avoid it at all cost. This kind of anemic politics by PNC/APNU-AFC must be dealt with at the polls on May 11, 2015
The farmers’ question to the PNC/APNU-AFC, is if they have ever developed any project of this kind? Do they have any such project in mind that can compare to the Polder project?
Can Guyanese Grand Pa Moses tell the young (Indian) generation his visions, besides wanting to become a bride of the PNC/APNU?

GANESH PERSAUD