In the year 1985 I, along with two other persons, bought some farm land (two four-acre plots) at Supply, EBD with orange and banana. A most beautiful sight was an orange tree with a thousand ripe oranges – gold with a touch of green. At the time when we bought the farm Diamond estate was cultivating sugar cane in the same area, and as such Diamond estate provided drainage and maintained the dam to the farm.
Two years later Diamond stopped cultivating sugar cane in the area and the maintenance of the drainage and dam ended; the canal became clogged up; the koker fell into disuse; and as the years passed the farm slowly went back to its original state before the colonials came.
Well, I kept paying the rates and taxes which used to be hundreds of dollars less than two thousand dollars yearly. This year on Friday, January 8, I went to the Craig Caledonia NDC office to pay the rates and taxes. I showed the female clerk there my old receipts, and she took a calculator, pressed some buttons, and told me the rates and taxes were now near $12,000. Well, I was staggered, but I paid, and on Sunday the 10th I visited the place where my farm is to see if I could return to cultivating it. However, the place is still abandoned, the canal is clogged up, the koker is still in disuse, and the dam is a cow pasture.
Editor, can somebody in the NDC or Region 4 administration advise me what I have paid nearly $12,000 for – almost a 600 per cent increase?
Yours faithfully,
WP George
