Latest update June 25th, 2026 9:38 AM
The verbal war about Hope Estate continues
Dear Editor,
I am convinced, from Aseef Balmacoon’s ranting and raving, that he is becoming quite deranged over the issue of him not getting to shylock his pound of flesh, observing that he campaigned vigorously for the AFC in the 2015 elections and therefore thinks that he has the divine right to be Administrative Manager of Hope estate since he was so promised. In this regard, he is dreaming dreams and seeing visions of me being employed by Dr Iamei Aowmathi and must be taking his herbal remedies. This is a figment of his imagination which is keeping him in a vile and malicious mindset and like the proverbial ostrich buried his head in sand and exposing his bare bottom. Perhaps, he needs a herbal detoxification from Dr Aowmathi.
His claim that ‘my family is fighting for land ……. records at Hope Estate show the lands are my grandfather’ is erroneous and barefaced. All lands at Hope Estate are the property of Hope Coconut Industries Limited which was registered as a private limited company in May 1982. His paternal grandfather was a rice farmer who had a year on year tenancy and was never an inhabitant of Hope while the other party in the dispute is a fourth generation descendant of the estate.
Also, his reference to me being a PPP member is a concoction of his warped thinking as I have never been a member of any political party. His entire family were longtime supporters of the PPP having relocated to Clonbrook during the racial disturbances of the sixties. His paternal grandfather had exchanged his land at Ann’s Grove, then a PNC stronghold, for the property they now occupy.
Thus, he is championing the cause of longtime associates of Clonbrook who are diehard PPP supporters and who are farming large acreages of mangoes and other permanent crops on the estate’s land and he only supported the AFC so that he can get back at the other party and relatives, longtime PNC supporters, in the rice land dispute. By his own confession, his appointment is obviously a conflict of interest.
He is right to mention that the majority of farmers are East Indians. They have had no connection to Hope, have breached their tenancy agreements by growing permanent and semi-permanent crops, making millions in the process and by subletting some plots at exorbitant prices to smaller farmers who are residents of Hope. The small farmers who have ten mango trees are really the Hope residents to whom he may be referring.
On the contrary, African families from Ann’s Grove, Victoria and other adjacent villages were never able to get lands for cash crop farming. Now that there is an African Chairman, Balmacoon and other East Indians are worried that the ‘blackman’ is about to take over the estate. However, the residents of the estate have longtime relationships with black families whose foreparents worked at the estate and so he should be told that Africans have also made tremendous contributions to Hope since the days of slavery and have a right to access farmlands and share in the pie.
Finally, Aseef Balmacoon has a perfunctory knowledge of management and good governance.
To educate his impish perceptions, his appointment as Administrative Manager is jaundiced, illegal, managerially unprincipled and unethical. Once a Board of Directors is in place at Hope Coconut Industries Limited, all matters of employment, etc is subsumed by the Board.
Therefore, if any appointment-political (as in this case) or otherwise- it must be sanctioned by the Board. If a Minister desires to make appointments or make decisions which fall within the purview of the Board, he can do the right thing by dissolving the Board of Directors and manage the entity.
Alternatively, he can seek the cooperation of the Board and let them make the appointment. Unsavory practices like these by governments and politicians in the past are inimical to accountability, transparency, probity and the tenets of good governance. Guyana today is a fine example of this virulent malady.
Ed Singh
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