The Minister should try to understand what agriculture means to Berbice

Sep 02, 2017 Letters

Dear Editor,
There are certain elements in this Coalition Government who lacks the qualities required of a statesman or minister. Two main characteristics such a person must possess are: he/she must be bedrock of principles and must possess high moral values. Unfortunately this is severely lacking in some cases.
Sometime ago it was reported in the media that a certain Minister accused the Amerindians of being greedy. This was done during the sitting of Parliament. Another one did a disparaging dramatization in Parliament and then the Attorney General’s alleged threatening behavior in open court. But I must make a qualifying statement here. The previous Government has had its surfeit of these misfits. However, the icing on the cake is the Minister of Public Security.
On one of his ‘outings’ in Berbice he totally embarrassed his ‘friends’ from his village when he said that they would only wait for ‘lawyer bai’ to come and do things for them. He said that they never did anything constructive but only laze around waiting. Is it not an implication that he himself comes to Berbice and does not plan constructively? What an embarrassment to these people coming from a man who is not only the Minister of Public Security but is also the Second-Vice President of this country.
Then he was seen on TV lambasting the Berbice community with his outright emotionally charged remarks. At a sparsely attended outreach, mostly attended by his same ‘friends’, he rebuked Berbicians for not joining the Guyana Police Force and that whenever they are faced with threats from criminals they would call the police and say ‘police come, come, come’ and expect that policemen should go and save them. He added that Berbicians only want to go into the rice industry. But when the ‘oil flow’ starts and the revenue starts to flow, the police will get better salary and at that time Berbicians will run to join the force because at that time ‘paddy price will be low’.
Here is a Minister predicting the fall of the agriculture sector in favor of the oil and gas sector. Does he feel anyone should neglect the agriculture sector and join the Police Force and wait for the ‘oil revenues to start pouring in’? Is this ‘oil revenue’ the panacea for all our social and economic ills?
What this Minister fails to understand and appreciate is the fact that many Berbicians are inherently attracted to agriculture in Berbice and they feel more comfortable here. Region 6 is mainly about agriculture. On the other hand, Georgetowners are inherently attracted to the disciplinary forces and that is where they find themselves. It is a cultural problem but the Minister feels that Berbicians are just interested in get rich industries and can only be attracted if the money is right. This is a fallacious argument.
Moreover, it is the duty of the Police Force to ‘serve and protect’ so they are not doing anyone a favor when they respond to calls of ‘police, come, come’. The Minister certainly feels otherwise.
He further attacked Berbicians by accusing them of ‘calling the Minister to come to Berbice for every lil problem’. It seems that in the Minister’s book, piracy, robbery and murder’ are petty crimes. The Minister is not doing Berbicians a favor by coming to Berbice; it is his responsibility to get first-hand information about his constituency- the Berbician votes put him there and the Berbician votes can remove him. It is time that this Minister stops insulting people in Berbice. He should remember that if there was no one to ‘kick’ his father’s paddy he might not be a lawyer today since he would have had to kick the paddy himself.
Muhammad Mustapha

Discover more from Kaieteur News

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Latest News