Pres Ali calls for Matarkai consortiums to advance farming, forestry & mining

…says Govt committed to empowering citizens to build wealth

President Dr Irfaan Ali has called on residents of the Matarkai sub-district in Region One (Barima-Waini) to form consortiums to advance farming, forestry and mining activities within their communities. The President made the call during a Cabinet outreach to the region last week. During his engagement with residents of the Matarkai sub-district, he highlighted the opportunities available in these sectors and emphasised the need for communities to work collectively to fully capitalise on them. Noting that if three consortiums are formed, each focusing on agriculture, mining and forestry, President Ali said “we can bring these three consortiums together and we can have the Development Bank in a few weeks…and we can work with these three clusters in this subregion”.

“That would allow us to determine an area, maybe 200 acres, that we can clear, open up for the development of agriculture, the development of the swine industry, poultry industry,” he noted. President Ali highlighted that the success of these ventures depends on the residents’ commitment. “How willing are we to form ourselves into a consortium to have a small to medium sized mining operation…how willing are we to start the community forestry association…how willing are we to form a group to do the poultry, to do the swine, a group to do other agriculture production,” he posited. President Ali also floated the idea of developing an eco-tourism facility in the subdistrict. “How we can get young people together to develop an eco-tourism facility here, now that we have this beautiful airstrip that will be completed. Where do we put that tourism facility? How we can help you, doing the logging right here to build the log cabins for the eco-tourism development. Through the Guyana Development Bank (GDB), we get 20 young persons, each one of them working with the forestry association, building a cabin each, so 20 of them can own an eco-resort with 20 cabins,” he suggested. In fact, the President highlighted how Government’s investments in the region will support these ventures as he underscored his administration’s commitment to empowering citizens to build wealth.
“As we continue to invest, we must now move to a phase where we empower people to create new forms of wealth, to create new economic opportunities, to create jobs and one of the things we are mindful of, is that we have to build a long-term sustainable plan for your area,” he noted. “A plan that ensures you produce food here, not only for this subregion, not only for Region One, but food that can be transferred to all across Guyana and that is why the airstrip is being built at the length it is being built, because we want to have cargo capacity coming out of this subregion. We have to improve the transportation network between Port Kaituma and here, we have to integrate the region in a greater way,” he further outlined.
Meanwhile, Minister of Housing Collin Croal also addressed residents of the subdistrict, acknowledging their past concerns about feeling overlooked amid the development taking place across the region. “You would recall, in not so recent times, you were complaining, you were saying to us that, first of all, at a local level, you feel neglected, at a local level, you feel the region is just ‘Mabaruma-based’, you felt the Government was operating like Port Kaituma is Matakai, those were the sorts of comments that you made,” Croal reminded, noting that under the Peoples Progressive Party Civic administration (PPP/C), those sentiments should no longer exist. Residents of Pakera, Minab, Heaven Hill, Hell Hill and Flats attended the forum which was held at the Skill Training Centre in Matthew’s Ridge.