…residents still await promises by Agri. Minister to materialiseNeglect of agricultural development in the Pomeroon is evident with frequent floods and continuous losses by dedicated farmers as they are yet to bear the fruits of promises by the Agriculture Ministry.This is according to Leader of the People’s National Congress Reform,Cheap NFL Jerseys China, Robert Corbin, who told the media yesterday about his visit to the Essequibo Coast and the Lower Pomeroon River last weekend.He noted that this neglect is more obvious on the Lower Pomeroon in communities such as Aberdeen and Hackney.According to Corbin, promises to provide relief, such as financial assistance, improving the drainage infrastructure and dredging the mouth of the Pomeroon River, have failed to fully materialise.During a press conference hosted at Congress Place, Sophia, yesterday, the Opposition Leader said that even in the few instances where some assistance was offered, there is clear evidence of discrimination in the manner in which the assistance was provided.The assistance, he claimed, was only provided to areas where the administration’s supporters live.He said that this amounts to obvious ‘political discrimination’,Jerseys NFL Wholesale, noting that the PNCR ‘does not make these claims idly.’Highlighting the discrimination, Corbin pointed to two excavators sent to the area with the promise that they would have been used to improve the drainage in all areas to buttress the effects of the frequent flooding.It was revealed, he said,Cheap Jerseys Free, that the two Hymacs were only used in ‘PPP support areas’ and when those assignments were completed, the machines were diverted to work on the large private farms.“The hymacs have been in a state of disrepair for several months with no effort being made to have them rehabilitated, while the farmers of Aberdeen, Hackney and other areas remain without any assistance or relief,” Corbin said.The Hackney and Aberdeen canals, the Opposition Leader explained, are overtaken with weeds leading to extreme hardship for farmers to take their produce to market at Charity.This also poses extreme challenges for children to attend school.“The refusal of the administration to assist in clearing these canals is a direct attack on the means of livelihood of these Guyanese citizens.”Direct representation, on these issues, was made by the PNCR Regional Councillors to the Regional Democratic Council of Region Two, Corbin said, but yet, the Administration has failed to provide adequate relief.The latest representation led to the employment of a single person to undertake the clearing of the weeds in the canals, Corbin said, describing this as a clear case of ‘political chicanery’, since, everyone knows that it is impossible for one person to clear and maintain several miles of a waterway.The continuing efforts by the residents in the Lower Pomeroon to obtain titles for their lands have been frustrated, despite promises by Minister of Agriculture, Robert Persaud, to have this matter expedited, Corbin noted.According to the Opposition leader, it is again ‘hypocritical’ for the Minister of Agriculture to boast of the government’s ‘Grow More Food’ campaign, expending large amounts of taxpayers money on propaganda and the building of billboards all over Guyana, while neglecting the fundamentals to make such a campaign successful.No attention, he said, has been paid to the troubling problem of markets for the farmers produce.The price of copra remains at an uneconomic level and no effort has been made to deal with this problem in the same manner that the administration speedily addresses such problems in the rice sector,NFL Jerseys China, he said.Corbin said that similar problems exist in the Education sector with students having to travel for miles by river at great expense to attend secondary school.“The promise made to build a secondary school at Hackney to serve students in the lower Pomeroon area is yet another unfulfilled promise. How could President Jagdeo boast of being the point person for Agriculture in Caricom and have such a dismal record of discrimination,Wholesale NFL Jerseys, leading to the decline in agriculture production?”The end result of this ‘sad situation’, Corbin said, is that the many young people, unimpressed with the difficulty that the elders are presently experiencing, find it more convenient to seek alternative employment in the gold and mining areas, leading to very little hope of continued agricultural development in the future.Regrettably, he said, those who have not chosen this alternative are willing victims of the drug trade.