— Vice-President Jagdeo announces during Region Six outreach
— farmers to help verify beneficiaries of government’s free fertiliser 

FARMERS and residents of Region Six, on Friday, received support from the government to the tune of $425 million to purchase fertiliser for their crops and to start a business or expand existing operations.

Speaking to scores of farmers at a community meeting at Number 63 Village, Region Six, Vice-President, Dr Bharrat Jagdeo said some $300 million has been allocated to rice farmers in the region to purchase fertiliser for their crops and a further $25 million for cash crop farmers.

The rice farmers will form themselves into groups and will ensure only eligible persons receive the fertiliser. They will also purchase the fertilisers and oversee its fair distribution.
Vice-President Jagdeo said the government will support the process and a group of farmers will form themselves into a committee that will play a vital role in preventing a recurrence of the situation that occurred with the flood-relief cash grant.

“We don’t want to come back here and hear from people again that some people got who did not deserve it and others did not get so you are going to have an opportunity now to help us to better intermediate this help, better extend this help to others,” he told the gathering.

There were numerous complaints of persons who fraudulently obtained flood-relief cash grants by falsely claiming to be farmers who suffered losses during the massive floods last year, denying many legitimate farmers who suffered losses from benefitting from the government’s intervention.

On the matter of verification, on Thursday, at a meeting with fisherfolk at the Classic International Hotel, East Berbice Corentyne, Dr Jagdeo urged the audience of fishermen to play an active role to ensure genuine fishermen benefit from the government’s $150,000 on-off grant for fisherfolk across the country.

This month will be used to scrutinise claims made by persons to receive the $150,000 one-off grant, and payments will commence in July.

The $300 million for Region Six rice farmers and $25 million for cash crop farmers in the region are drawn from the $1 billion in free fertiliser for farmers countrywide announced by President, Dr Irfaan Ali last month.

Vice-President Jagdeo during a recent visit to Region Two had announced that some $250 million will be available to farmers there to purchase fertiliser and another $25 million will be given to cash crop farmers for the same purpose.

The intervention by the government has been viewed by stakeholders as timely. The prices for fertilisers on the world market rose by 80 per cent in 2021, and has already risen by a further 30 per cent since the start of 2022.

CUSHION
The support to farmers with free fertilisers is part of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) government’s effort to absorb the rising global costs for the commodity, and to prevent the costs being passed on to consumers.

Hours after wrapping up his meeting at Number 63 Village, Vice-President Jagdeo headed over to the Albion Sports Ground where he was warmly received by hundreds of residents there.
At that forum, he announced that he is fulfilling a promise he made to Region Six residents during his previous outreach in which he promised 400 small business grants to the region.

The beneficiaries were thankful for kind gesture by the government. The 400 grants at $250,000 each means that some $100 million will be pumped into the region to start small businesses or to expand existing businesses.
“We want people to start earning on their own. It is not a large amount of money, in some regions they are using it, like in Region 10, a lot on chicken; they do a lot of chicken and so the $250,000 was enough to build a pen, buy the feed and get probably a 100 chicks from which they can grow.

“Some others are using it to support other ventures. So, I’m hoping that you will utilise these small business grants to create employment for yourselves and hopefully your business with government support in the future can grow. We want to be supportive so that people can do better and create more jobs and we have more entrepreneurs,” he told the residents.

The PPP/C in its 2020 manifesto had promised to provide some 50,000 jobs to Guyanese in its first term in office. Thus far, the thousands of jobs have been created through a plethora of developmental projects in the past 18 months.

The government will also create some 8,000-10,000 part-time jobs and has so far awarded some 6,000 of these jobs in Regions Two, Six and 10.

NECESSARY
The Vice-President explained that these jobs are necessary, noting that some 35,000 Guyanese lost their jobs as a result of poor policies under the former A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) Government and another 35,000 when the very government shut down the country on the advent of COVID-19.

On assuming office in August 2020, the PPP/C Government made the decision to reopen the country while placing heavy focus on vaccination and containing the spread of the pandemic.

This strategy, Dr Jagdeo said, has paid dividends as Guyana has emerged from the pandemic in a far better state compared to many developed nations with advanced healthcare systems. Many of these countries had a higher death rate and the pandemic took a toll on their economies.

The Vice-President during his outreach to Region Six also paid impromptu visits to Crabwood, Little India, Little Africa, Belvedere and Chesney. These residents complain mainly about the state of roads and garbage disposal in their communities.

The Vice-President said that the government has allocated in the Budget 2022 some $4 billion to fix community roads in Region Six and this and the garbage issues will be addressed. He also briefed the residents about the government’s plans for Region Six and vision for the country.

Since being elected to office, the government has been hard at work delivering on its manifesto promises, and to date, about 80 per cent of them have been delivered, said Dr Jagdeo.
Value Added Tax (VAT) on water, electricity, machinery, agricultural inputs and other burdensome taxes have been removed; the school uniform grant has been restored and increased from $10,000 to $25,000; school uniform vouchers have increased from $2,000 to $5,000; excise tax on diesel and gasoline has been slashed to zero; old age pension has increased by 40 per cent; more than 10,000 house lots have been allocated; thousands will receive homes; and billions of dollars have been given to farmers affected by flooding and to citizens to cushion the impact of the rising cost of living.