Rain makes Parika Backdam travel miserable

Heavy rainfall resulted in residents and farmers of Parika Backdam, East Bank Essequibo facing difficulties traversing the road on Friday after a huge section was impassable to small vehicles.

The road is currently being rehabilitated and residents lamented that the contractors were “slack; they shoulda really fix this thing before the rain come down. They shoulda done loam this road…”

The road work started in September and while residents were happy that it was being fixed, they had not catered for the inconvenience they suffered.

A taxi dropped off passengers who ploughed through the deep mud and another wait
A taxi dropped off passengers who ploughed through the deep mud and another wait

Persons, including schoolchildren were dropped off in front of the deplorable section and then had to “plough through the muddy road” before joining another vehicle which took them to their destination.

They also had to pay an extra cost in the process with school children paying $200 instead of $100 and adults paying $300 instead of $200.

Some of the hire car and minibus drivers refuse to traverse the road for fear of their vehicles being damaged and causing them to endure additional expenses.

It was raining when this newspaper visited the area around midmorning Friday and a farmer who owns a canter truck was taking his produce out to the Parika market. His vehicle skidded a few times as he tried to manoeuvre in the deep mud.

He pointed out that other farmers who did not have their own transportation were unable to leave the area with their produce. He said while they were not affected by flooding the road resulted in a major setbacks.

They lamented that “As farmers we are punishing; we have to leave home at 5 o’clock in the morning to look load fuh reach at the market and because of the bad road we gon reach late. We don’t know if the people [vendors] would still take it.”

Deodatt Seodatt, secretary of the Parika/Naamryck Farmers’ Progressive Organization told Stabroek News that before the work started some sections of the road were “really bad.”

He said that if “they [contractors] didn’t dig it out it would have been worse” but other farmers disagreed.

According to him, “The contractors dig out the slush and the rain came down at the same time.” Some residents felt that the contractor could have placed crusher run on the spot to allow easy access but Seodatt said “with that moisture content it would be slush again and we would waste a set of money…”