Wakenaam to receive Excavator to improve drainage
During a meeting with residents of Wakenaam, Region Three (Essequibo Islands – West Demerara), Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha disclosed that another excavator will be made available to assist residents with drainage works.
This was announced after residents present at a farmers’ meeting at the Wakenaam Secondary School said that there was need for an additional machine to execute all the works on the island. Additionally, Minister Mustapha said that the NDIA will work to desilt all the major outfall channels on the island and have all the dams rehabilitated to assist farmers with transporting their crops from their farms.
He also told farmers that they will soon receive the fertiliser from the government’s fertiliser assistance initiative that is scheduled to commence in the coming weeks.
President Irfaan Ali had announced that the government will be purchasing and distributing, free of cost, $1 billion in fertilisers to both cash crop and rice farmers all across Guyana as a means of absorbing the rising global costs for the commodity and to prevent the costs from being passed on to consumers at the market.
The $1 billion will be drawn from the $5 billion the government had set aside in the 2022 national budget to implement measures to ease the cost of living for citizens, which is caused by the external economic shocks from the COVID-19 pandemic and the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Of the $1 billion announced, $900 million will go towards the procurement of fertilizer for the rice industry, while the remaining $100 million will be given to persons cultivating cash crops.
