Latest update May 5th, 2026 12:35 AM
Latest News
- Soldier shot in river ambush
- Five years later Govt. still to settle US$214M audit dispute with Exxon
- Oil prices jump 6% as Iran sets UAE oil port ablaze, strikes vessels in Strait of Hormuz
- U.S. and Iran escalate attacks in Strait of Hormuz
- Guyana defends sovereignty at ICJ against Venezuela’s claims
The PPP regime treated us as rubbish
Dear Editor,
In an article in Kaieteur News (Jan. 6), Sase Singh has given some ill-informed opinions of the present scenario with regards to Hope Estate. As a third generation descendant of the estate’s original inhabitants, I am convinced that this columnist has taken half-truths, distorted and adorned them to make them appear as truth. Where was he when the past administration treated us, the inhabitants of the estate as rubbish while their families, relatives and friends amassed riches? Although we are all PPP supporters, President Burnham moved us out of the logies and treated us with dignity and respect. However, the past administration made us slaves to their rich families and friends and we are left with empty bowls. Except for money paid by NDIA for cleaning the canals, we have no jobs, no lands to cultivate and just survive from day to day.
Firstly, we were informed at a meeting with residents that the Chairman, Dr Iamei Aowmathi has been mandated by the Board of Directors to manage the estate, bring it to normalcy and solvency, recoup outstanding rents, deal with the issue of farmers who have breached their tenancy agreements by planting permanent crops instead of cash crops, resolve the matter of waiver of rents for big farmers among other things. Further, in our meeting with the Board of Directors at the farmers’ meeting on the 11th October, 2015 we requested that action be taken against farmers who sublet lands allocated to them for exorbitant fees and to ensure that the poor residents of the estate be given priority for land instead of the big farmers who have no connection to the estate, many of whom live in other areas and abroad in USA and Canada.
We, the poor people who are cash crop farmers, are not against the yearly rent which amounts to $1,250. per acre each month. The big farmers who have now become millionaires after farming the lands of the estate are the ones crying out. You are invited to send your reporters and cameramen to gain hands-on information and to view the Sase Singh’s ’poor small farmers’ using their canters, minibuses, trucks and fancy cars, etc to transport produce from their farms while the ‘rich bonafide residents’ cannot ride even a donkey or horse. As regards the Administrative Manager appointed to the estate, his family and another long time farming family are fighting for years over rice lands at the estate. Is the Government out of its mind to have such people manage the estate? Hence, please have your reporters visit the estate rather than have Sase Singh decorate the big farmers as poor people who cannot pay the increased rent.
Ed Singh
Share this:
Discover more from Kaieteur News
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.