Crocodile tears from Ratiram?

THE EDITOR: Couva North UNC MP Ravi Ratiram, whose name is no stranger to my journalistic pen, seems to have taken issue with my recent letter to the editor published in the Express newspapers.

In the October 5 Newsday, the UNC’s shadow agriculture minister seemed to have emerged from the shadows to label my letter as misleading and nothing more than "lie, cry and mamaguy" – three words which seem to be the UNC’s latest uninspiring political appendage to everything PNM.

For those readers who may have missed my letter, I will just repeat some aspects of it here.

It stated that “the Keith Rowley-led government seems way ahead of the critics and the business sector who are now making a clarion call for a boost to the agriculture sector. In the lead-up to the September 30 national budget.”

It praised the government’s visionary approach to revitalising and expanding the agriculture sector as a major part of its Roadmap to Recovery mandate post-covid19, conceptualised in 2020.

This recovery roadmap promised that the government was going to employ modern technology to achieve its aim to revitalise the agriculture sector, and, as my letter stated, the Ministry of Youth Development and National Service has engaged a cadre of young people to lead the revitalisation of the sector.

Hundreds have graduated from the agriculture and aquaculture programmes and many have received parcels of land to grow food for the country. Regardless of what Ratiram wants us to believe, this is a fact. And it is happening right now.

As to his silly claims about race talk, I simply made the point that “contrary to popular belief in some opposition quarters that black youth equate to crime in this country, Minister Foster Cummings and the government are showing a different side of the youth population. They are on the way to creating and sustaining the bread basket of the nation.”

In his response, Ratiram went on to quote budgetary allocations for successive years and opined that the PNM is killing agriculture.

Maybe Ratiram can answer some questions about the state of agriculture in this country, in particular the coconut industry.

Surely, Ratiram must be aware that in an effort to revitalise the coconut industry the government went to Guyana and sourced 3,000 coconut plants by way of dry nuts for seed planting, and an individual husked all the nuts and killed them. Total destruction!

I am no agriculturist, but from what I have learnt from those who know about these things, even the most inexperienced novice knows that in order for a coconut to germinate as a seed the husk of the dry nut must remain intact.

Who was it who undermined the government’s effort at the Ministry of Agriculture? Who is the genius who oversaw the husking of 3,000 nuts that were imported for planting?

It seems that was not the only occasion in which the government’s efforts were sabotaged at the ministry.

Is Ratiram crying crocodile tears and spewing his own version of "lie, cry and mamaguy?"

My letter just had one line about the UNC MP, simply pointing out that he accused the government of running agriculture to the ground and “squandering” $800 million on the agriculture stimulus package, and he again repeated his allegations in his letter.

Maybe he did not like the fact that I said “UNC political hacks will always be identified by their empty rhetoric.”

Let me just repeat my praises for the government’s efforts to recover the economy post-covid19 and following a drastic drop in oil prices in 2020. During the January-March period of that year, this country suffered over $4 billion in losses to the local economy. The country had shut down.

On September 30, this caring government allocated $1.184 billion to agriculture in the 2024-2025 national budget, a clear indication that it is keeping true to its promise to boost and sustain the agriculture sector by placing emphasis on reducing dependency on imported goods, increasing production, building a more technology-driven agriculture system, and reintroducing guaranteed markets so as to control lower food prices through Namdevco.

My advice to Ratiram is simple: instead of attempting to confuse on the subjects of youth and agriculture, this MP may want to respond to serious allegations made by a former UNC minister.

IRENE MEDINA

Arima alderman