‘PNC projects’ cannot be classified as emergency works

Dear Editor,
Numerous articles recently published by the media, give testimony to the consistent manipulation and breach of procurement laws, which are being blatantly and flagrantly flaunted under the administration of the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) Government. Their silence on, and lack of correct efforts, provide strong testimony of a subtle accommodation of the many unacceptable wrongs.
No doubt, the suppression of disciplinary, corrective and essential counter-checking mechanisms, negatively impact local governance matters. At the same time, the transparency requirements of the Government seem to have been dissolved and forgotten by its principals and agents. The situation in Region Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam) is not limited to the defaulting, but provides apt examples of the wide distasteful approach. Budgeted parliamentary appropriations are being re-prioritised, while the productive capacity of the region suffers from lack of necessary support.
As the 2018 rice crop gets into full swing, farmers throughout the country are experiencing serious difficulties with ‘impassable’ roads/dams along with soft and muddy fields. On the Essequibo Coast, farmers are lamenting that their calls on the Regional Executive Officer (REO) in Regional Two to address the required maintenance of roads and dams, have fallen on deaf ears.
The REO under the pretext of creating savings, has deliberately withheld much needed monies from the current budget, that was supposed to facilitate the grading of roads, dams and cleaning of drainage trenches; to facilitate the water running off the fields into the drainage trenches. Rationally, the blocked drainage trenches are causing backed up water in the rice fields. It has realised a situation where the rice had to be reaped in soft and muddy land, which contributes to significantly increased production costs.
At the recent Public Accounts Committee (PAC) meeting, the brazen misuse of authority by this REO was brutally exposed. In his futile attempt to provide an acceptable explanation for consistently breaching the procurement laws, said he spent savings from the ‘Current Account’ to do ‘Emergency works’. This nonsensical position flies in the face of even the most irrationally challenged persons.
From a closer examination, however, readers deserve to be up-dated that the money was spent to facilitate construction of the following: a bus shed at Dartmouth; a fence at Unity Park-Phase-I; a fence at Unity Park-Phase 2, and a sitting area at Cotton Field. It should be noted that projects which include construction of buildings and infrastructure, should be done from Capital funding.
Notably, these projects were by no means emergencies and the lack of critical productive support.
It was quite revealing that millions of dollars were expended on the planting of palm trees around Ann Regina and further millions were spent on planting trees and growing them along some specific communities on the Essequibo Coast.
I must highlight for the update of readers, that none of these ‘PNC Projects’ can be classified as emergency works. Comparatively, all the poor farmers have asked for is the usual assistance of some fuel and materials to full the potholes and grade the dams. The REO at a recent meeting accepted that in the past, farmers were given assistance to do their own self-help work to facilitate the smooth harvesting of the rice crop.
Many farmers have expressed very strong beliefs that the current contraventions of the written policies, are intentional and designed to punish the farmers and their children in particular Local Authority Areas. Targeted in this respect are areas where Government do not control the elected Councils. There are currently no other rational positions for the actions of the Government officers towards the farmers.
This serious deliberate vicious discrimination against selective sections of the population is driven by Government agents and has worsened. We are now hearing more about oil replacing the agricultural sector in this country, and this is bound to have significant negative implications. The People’s Progressive Party had warned about the “Dutch Disease” which this Government seem bent on allowing to happen.

Yours truly,
Neil Kumar