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More govt. resources need to be invested in Berbice

Dec 13, 2008 Letters

Dear Editor,
The PPP government has failed to deliver in three major areas of neglect in Berbice. The first area is obviously in agriculture even though Berbice is the farm belt of Guyana. The government has channeled the majority of energies into the export sector which is dominated by large landholders.

This has forced small farmers off the land. These individuals have subsequently become wage earners or have migrated overseas. The government should have instead engaged in a more determined land reform policy for the landless and peasant families.

The goal should be self-sufficiency in food production prior to export expansion, with profits from agriculture invested in Berbice. May I ask this government to declare how much revenue does Berbice contribute to the GDP in the area of agriculture and how much of this has been re-invested back into this county?

The second is decent wages. The government has failed to provide reliable wages in order to stimulate both production and consumption. The aim should be to meet the needs of the community. Limits should be placed on the percentage of profits taken abroad and on the government, forcing foreign investors as well as the government to reinvest in the expansion of the local economy from which profits were gleaned. One area where this aspiration could be realized is in the development of the ever neglected No. 63. Beach.

May I suggest to this government or moreso the Minister of Tourism that if the beach is developed it has potential to bring in millions of dollars and provide hundreds of jobs?

Where is the government’s diversification economic plan? Put it into practice. Invite a foreign investor (s) to develop the beach if the government is straddled and bogged down with a huge national debt.

The third is in health care. The government has not delivered in this area at all. The focus should be on creating and staffing clinics, and hospitals geared towards preventative medicine and local treatment.

Introduce high-tech medical diagnostic and therapeutic equipment to possibly improve the general standard of living and, more importantly, to slow down out-migration for medical reasons as well as to lure back the brain-drain of professionals.

This might be expensive but it would beneficial to the region and Guyana in the long-run. Medical care is rather an ignored and often sore point in Berbice.

The heath care there is just deplorable and the hospitals have been described as torture chambers. Look, I am not asking this government to create miracles but to provide the basics from which the ordinary citizens can develop.

That is what governments are intended to do. The general impression is that this government has been engulfed in a sub standard form of development in Berbice.

The consequences are that Berbice has experienced a policy of promising more and receiving less, a policy of a downward harmonization of healthcare, wage, and life.

One more point need to be discussed. Would this government or the supporters and defenders of the PPP look the Guyanese public in eye and say how much they really care for Berbice?

How many PPP Parliamentarians are from Berbice? The answer is hardly any. Does anyone seriously think that the sugar-cutting culture in Berbice would benefit from the new or expanded sugar estate?

The old news is that the revenues from this estate would go to pay-off debts and little would be re-invested in the community. This community has hardly improved since colonial times and the reason is really simple.

If this community receives the basic services (health, education, decent wages, etc) for improvement, there would be a movement away from the sugar cane fields. Who would cut the sugar cane? A guaranteed labor force means the continuation of deprivation and ignorance in the community.

This government has not deviated from this concept; in fact, it has exploited this community more than any other government, including the colonial, because this where the government’s support is based. That is why at one time, the PNC disparaging referred to the PPP as a “Sugar and rice government.”
Lomarsh Roopnarine

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