Diversification? Fancy words but no action

How long are we going to procrastinate? Every time we face a crisis, as we are facing now, there is a lot of talk and then we continue on our merry way. We pretend as though everything is okay even though we know it is not.

Only last week I listened to the Minister of Trade and Industry voicing a lot of fancy words on diversification but saying nothing.

At her side lending support was the Minister of Agriculture.

People are so tired of this ongoing charade as we advance on the road of a collapsing economy.

And as I saw the Agriculture Minister in that forum where diversification was being bandied about, I was disturbed. I wonder if he really appreciates how important his ministry is to diversification? Agriculture is one of the main hopes to diversifying our economy. Oil and gas are dwindling and within a few years they will be depleted. Agriculture has a longer lifespan than oil and gas.

I was disturbed because this minister fails to hear the cry of cocoa and coffee farmers of Robert Village, Tableland, for restoration of several neglected agricultural access roads. Roads are now impassable because government after government neglected them and only talked about diversification.

When Colm Imbert was the Minister of Works and Transport in the last PNM government, he made a bold call for farmers/ citizens to submit the names of neglected roads. I submitted a list. Not one of them has been repaired to date. I wonder if the Prime Minister is aware of what is happening on the ground in agriculture? The PNM is back in power after five years in opposition and these roads are now worse. What is the Minister of Agriculture doing? He is still talking diversification and not providing the necessary infrastructure for farmers, who are our main hope.

I listen to Cadet of the Cocoa and Coffee Association talk about the plight of cocoa farmers. What a distressing picture he paints.

Cocoa is such an enterprising product, not only as a raw material for the foreign market but as a raw material to make products for the foreign market.

This is what the cocoa farmers of Robert Village are interested in. They want to rehabilitate their cocoa estates and make diversification a reality and not talk.

I have had enough “talk” by way of correspondence to and from this minister and his engineering division. After all the runaround, the information I received is that there is no money to attend to these roads, not even one.

Could you imagine this revelation and the talk is diversification? Could anyone really explain to a lay person this imbalance in the distribution of our tax money? There is need for redirecting part of the budgetary allocation to important areas of expenditure to implement diversification.

There is no money to mobilise agriculture, which is one of the main avenues for diversification, but there is money for excessive and unnecessary roaming and splurging in Tobago. There is need for the Minister of Finance to redirect some finance speedily to the Ministry of Agriculture.

REV ROBERT DASH Tableland