There is no drought in Tapakuma village

Dec 15, 2016 Letters

Dear Editor,
We the residents of the Lake community of Tapakuma Village hereby respond to an article in another newspaper dated Monday, December 5, 2016. The writer of the article intentionally or unintentionally (be your own judge) reported that we were suffering from drought conditions to the extent that farmers will stand to lose thousands of acres of rice and other crops like plantains, bitter cassava, eddoes, etc.
The article, written by one Shauna Jemmot, cannot be further from the truth. We have not suffered from a period of drought for the longest while. And whenever we do have a prolonged dry spell (i.e the Tapakuma Lake) it is only obvious that rice farmers are the first to complain. No such thing occurred this time around but one Mr Mohammed Khan issues to Jemmott a drought report. Nothing is more laughable.
First of all, Editor, people here in this village are not rice farmers. There is little more than 25 farmers here, of little over 2 acres on average cultivated land, per farmer. Not rice, please! Most men work as chainsaw millers or are employed in the gold mining areas. Ms Jemmott either clearly lost her way or may have been misled by political mischief makers. She commented on the “bad state” of our main access road to Anna Regina. She never alluded to the fact that conditions have improved.
Editor, you will agree that any reporter worth his/her salt in journalism should understand that to make a status report of any kind, one has to have corroborating evidence. Evidently the article carried none. She quoted no- one from our community and the photo in the newspaper accompanying the article is also a fake one. We are confident that it would fail any test of scrutiny if it comes to that. Be advised Mr. Editor, that after 23 long years the access road to our little village of under a thousand residents (not over 4000 residents, as reported in the article) has now been upgraded. What the writer of the article nevertheless described as our road fits the description of what obtained during that atrocious 23-year period before the upgrade. Not what it has now become, thanks to the Coalition- led government.
A new “David-G” school-bus is now plying that road, taking our children safely to secondary schools at Anna Regina. Commuters are now even travelling in and out of the village, using taxis, much to the convenience of villagers. The community bus also takes passengers to and from Anna Township for $500 per trip, not $12000 per one way trip as reported.
One can only estimate why, Editor, after only two weeks of a glowing ‘write up’ on the village of Tapakuma, in the Chronicle Newspaper, this very village has suddenly turned into a village of droughty conditions.
One can only assume mischief afoot or political droughty conditions for some.
Joseph Atkinson
Resident of Tapakuma Village

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