Latest update April 4th, 2025 6:13 AM
Parika back dam farmers appeal for repairs to access road
Some of the farmers expressing their concerns yesterday
Farmers, hire car drivers and other residents who utilise the Parika Back dam access road, are convinced that the authorities are neglecting them in a most unconscionable way.
During a visit to the area yesterday, a number of residents, primarily farmers, converged on the access road and explained to this newspaper how the road was left to deteriorate over the years.
However, they pointed out that the state of the road worsened a few months ago, when separate contractors commenced works to build bridges and a dumpsite at the back dam.
They said that the road which was constructed with sand and crusher in 2001, was unable to withstand the weight of the materials transported by trucks for the projects and thus, a section has been reduced to nothing more than a slushy mud path.
Several attempts by persons to restore the road saw graders damaging it even further, the residents disclosed.
A tractor traverses the slushy Parika back dam access road
And the situation has been affecting the ability of farmers to bring out their perishable produce from the back dam to find markets.
Hire car drivers who would normally transport residents along the several miles of roadway, are refusing to use the road.
In expressing his concern about the situation, Chandradat, a farmer, who has been residing in the area for more than 28 years, said that as far back as he could remember, the road has been a major problem to residents.
“We need a good road and this is the condition that we always know.
They would grade the road and it would last for a period of time and after then it just get bad again. This is our only access in and out of this place.”
He said that the road is accessed by residents from three communities, Naamryck, Parika and Ruby back dams. And close to 1,000 families, he speculated, are affected by the situation.
According to Chandradat, it is his belief that the government should have financed the construction of a better road for the residents of the communities.
He related that neither of the contractors have owned up to damaging nearly a mile of the road, a situation which has since gained the attention of the Regional Chairman, Julius Faerber, and even the Ministry of Agriculture.
“These contractors breakup this road during the dry weather and now the rain has come and it is just worse. And right now they can’t even use the trucks to take in their supplies, so they are using tractor and trailer and they are damaging it even more now.
Not even cars or buses can transport passengers to the back dam.”
The farmers said that when they reported the matter to the Regional Chairman, there was no satisfaction to be had.
The regional official simply pointed out that he did not have the necessary resources to restore the road.
At the Agriculture Ministry, Deodat Seodat, a resident, said that an official, upon hearing of their plight, telephoned the Regional Chairman who again repeated that there was no available fund to fix the road.
Another official, he said, subsequently visited the area and observed that the damage to the road was in fact caused by the contractors.
“This evidence shows that up to where the projects are ongoing, that is up to where the deterioration of the road stops…”
According to Seodat, because the hire cars are unable to drive on the road, he was forced to take his children to school on a bicycle, skillfully manoeuvering through the slushy mud so that they could have written their examinations yesterday.
Another resident, Shamir Baksh, said that all the residents are calling on President Bharrat Jagdeo to look into the matter.
He also said that the President had promised to visit the area after the road was completed in 2001.
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