BV/Triumph progress stifled by unemployment
Accessibility to farmlands can help turn fortunes around Edited by Michelle Nurse
Stories compiled by Wendella Davidson
Guyana Chronicle
May 9, 2004

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THE development of the Beterverwagting/Triumph community, which boasted previously of bountiful production of ground provisions and fruits, is stifled through unemployment.

This is the view of Mr. Bruce Adams, Chairman of the Beterverwagting/Triumph Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC).

Adams has been at the helm of the NDC for the past 10 years.

The NDC oversees the general administration of the district, including collection of rates and taxes and the maintenance of roads, dams, trenches and bridges, as well as the environmental conditions of the village. But according to Adams, the Council can only execute its work within the confines of its resources.

With the exception of a small subvention from government on a yearly basis which is used to execute capital works, the main revenue-earning scheme of the BV/Triumph neighbourhood is the collection of rates and taxes.

But he said, due to the high percentage of unemployment and other constraints affecting the residents, there is an extremely low percentage of collection of rates and taxes.

Agard further pointed out that the BV/Triumph community comprises two miles under residency and about six miles of cultivation located in the backlands.

However, only about 10 per cent of the acreage is utilized. The rest is overrun by brush due to an inaccessible dam.

The Chairman said that the NDC is awaiting a response from the Social Impact Amelioration Programme (SIMAP) to an application for funding to have the dam rehabilitated so as to enable access to the farmlands.

According to him, the youths in the area are excited about the prospect of exploiting agricultural and poultry farming, which is currently being done on the utilised area but on a relatively small scale.

He said the daunting factor is access to and from the vast acreage of under-utilised farmlands.

Agard remembered that as a youth, he saw his grandfather and other elder residents returning home from the farmlands aback the village with boatloads of ground provisions and fruits including mangoes, oranges and star-apples.

"The farmlands are begging to be utilised, but the difficulty lies in accessibility," he stressed.

The NDC Chairman commented too on the underutilised village market located below the NDC office.

The facility operates on a daily basis, but can easily be described as a white elephant since only about three vendors sell there. On one occasion when the Chronicle visited, only two small stalls, hawking mainly groceries, were open for business. The vendors usually travel to the City to purchase items which have to be resold at a very high price if they are to make a profit.

Agard was quick to note that the thriving market in the neighbouring Mon Repos community is a breakaway from the BV/Triumph market.

Commenting on the present state of the industrial site, which is on record as being the first to be set up in an East Coast village, Agard said when this was established by Town Planner Aubrey Barker, himself a Baronian, the idea was for it to be a masterpiece for the East Coast.

In the early years, it thrived and was home to promising entities such as IDI Engineering; Shoe World; Bata; Windsor Shirt Factory and Wieting and Richter Limited Biscuit Factory and Guyana Furniture Manufacturing Limited (GFML), among others.

The economic depression soon took its toll and many of the industrialists ran bankrupt.

Today, just a few businesses are in operation including, Shoe World; Atlantic Tele-Centre Inc., an ATN Company which utilises a section of the Shoe World building, and GFML, all on a low scale.

Just recently, the peaceful solitude of the village was rocked by acts of banditry resulting in villagers having to form a Community Policing Group.

Despite the somewhat daunting conditions, Chairman Agard is nevertheless optimistic that Beterverwagting/Triumph community will one day soon return to its once premier position.