Latest update January 18th, 2025 7:00 AM
GRPA head unfazed by calls for his removal
With farmers on the Essequibo Coast once again mounting protests last Friday calling for drastic changes in the local rice sector, Dharamkumar Seeraj, General Secretary of the Guyana Rice Producers’ Association (GRPA) is unmoved by the calls for his removal, stating that such calls are misplaced.
The farmers have maintained that both Seeraj and Jagnarine Singh, General Manager of the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) should be replaced by “competent” persons to ensure that the sector can progress.
But according to Seeraj, who has been with the GRPA since 1988, rather than agitate for his removal, farmers should agitate for better pricing for their paddy. In particular, Seeraj pointed out, the Essequibo Farmers’ Association should be calling for A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) Government to honor its campaign promise to ensure farmers are paid $6000-$9000 per bag of paddy.
General Secretary of the GRPA Dharamkumar Seeraj
This promise, Seeraj said, was made on the campaign trail by the coalition prior to the May 11th General and Regional elections to farmers countrywide.
According to Seeraj, these promises raised false hopes in farmers’ minds, especially as the regular price of $3000 per bag of paddy was something that was already proving hard to maintain.
He also stated that the farmers’ grievances should be directed towards pricing issues, issues that should be taken up by the current administration. Seeraj pointed that neither him nor Jagnarine promised farmers upwards of $6000 per bag of paddy. That promise came from the APNU+AFC.
“Instead of calling for me and Jagnarine to resign, they should be calling on the government to keep its promises,” Seeraj said.
He also confronted calls for his removal head on, questioning why farmers would direct their calls for removal towards him, when his Association, as a regulatory body rather than a budgeted agency, did not work with the government.
According to the General Secretary, the GRPA has a process through which a new General Secretary is appointed. This, he said, is done through a council made up of farmers, not through the Government or a Minister.
Seeraj was also of the opinion that calls for his removal, were political in nature.
It is not the first time that farmers on the Essequibo, disgruntled by being owed millions of dollars on a consistent basis, have protested for the removal of the heads of GRPA and GRDB.
Poor dockage and weight along with the perception that not enough was being done by Government to deal with the rice surplus on the local market and flooding have also contributed to rice farmers overall dissatisfaction and there were protests last year against the then Peoples Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) administration.
Over the past weeks, the Essequibo Coast from Anna Regina to Golden Fleece has been plagued by incessant rainfalls which, coupled with ineffective drainage, has led to flooding that has destroyed crops.
There were protests against the former administration directly before the May 11th elections.
On Friday last, it seemed that farmers picked up where they left off. They expressed dissatisfaction with the pace at which the Noel Holder-led Ministry of Agriculture was proceeding, calling for the removal of Seeraj and Singh, as well as CEO of the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA) Lionel Wordsworth.
Friday’s protest was led by President of the Essequibo Farmers Association Naith Ram and the placard bearing protestors marched from the Anna Regina High Bridge to the PPP/C party office and back to the bridge.
Ram had said that even after March, when farmers would have sold their paddy to millers, they are still owed large sums amounting to over $6B, while the Government itself owes millers over $1B. These scenarios, he had argued, made it hard on farmers and their families, since in most cases farmers were still indebted to the bank.
Ram had also declared that following the May 11th National and Regional Elections, almost all of the kokers in the Region were not functioning, resulting in areas such as Capoey, Devonshire-Castle and Walton-Hall being flooded out.
Ram also argued that while the Region continues to battle with heavy rain and continuously congested outfalls due to the massive build up of silt, he believes that Holder should revisit the contracts that were given to businessmen who were provided with Government machinery to clean those outfalls.
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