Cash crop farmers at Cotton Tree, West Berbice are demanding compensation due to flooding caused during repairs to a three-door sluice at D’Edward Village but a senior official of the Mahaica Mahaicony Agricultural Development Authority (MMA-ADA) said those in the community had been advised about the impact of the works.
MMA- ADA General Manager, Aubrey Charles said his entity was not responsible for compensation. He related that he was aware that a number of agriculture officers visited Cotton Tree last week Thursday but he was not privy to the details.
A senior Ministry of Agriculture official, speaking with Demerara Waves Online News (www.demwaves.com) virtually ruled out compensation because the opposition which holds a one-seat majority in the National Assembly would not approve supplementary spending. The official explained that in the past, monies could have been taken out of the Contingency Fund to provide compensation and then the government would have gone to the Assembly for approval.
DemWaves was told that a team from the National Agricultural Research and Extension Institute (NAREI) would be dispatched to examine the situation.
Farmers complained bitterly as they showed destruction caused by the flood waters to beds of bora, corilla, tomatoes, watermelons, pumpkins and peppers. They averaged their losses at between GUY$200,000 and GUY$400,000.
Alliance For Change (AFC) Chairman, Nigel Hughes promised the farmers and residents to pursue compensation for them and asked that they record their names and losses by Tuesday. The claim, he said, would be submitted to the Region Five Administration and the MMA-ADA.
“They should have notified you that there was a possibility that there would be flooding and once you suffer damage, you should get your compensation. That is all this is about,” Hughes told the farmers on Sunday.
Residents complained that although they lose half to two-thirds of their crops to flooding annually no effort has been made to empolder or revet their farmlands.
But the MMA-ADA General Manager said three meetings were held with residents to inform them about the planned infrastructural work and receive feedback from them. He said it was possible that not all of them might have attended the meetings.
“Before we started work, we had meetings in the Cotton Tree area. They were fully informed and they were fully backing the MMA because of the long-term benefit,” Charles told DemWaves.
He explained that this latest flooding was as a result of the need to block near the mouth of a canal and close the D’Edward three-door sluice which is located just north of the Berbice River bridge.
The water between the coffer dam and the closed sluice door was pumped out to allow workers to elevate the level of the canal with the concrete base of the sluice, he said. Charles further explained that erosion was responsible for the drop in the bed level of the channel below the concrete base.
The MMA -ADA General Manager said in an effort to mitigate the impact of the repairs at the D'Edward Sluice, the authority had activated a sluice at Number 12 Village. However, that drainage facility was inadequate for recent heavy rainfall that had amounted to 85 millimetres. "It couldn't cope with the volume of water," he said.
He said that in an effort to alleviate the flooding the coffer dam was removed and part of the work to increase the bed level and prevent future erosion has been affected. Completion of the work, he said, would have to await the next dry season in 2013.
