Mocha Arcadia benefitted from $5M subvention, community enhancement

– Min Dharamlall clarifies

The Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC) of Mocha Arcadia has benefitted from the government’s $5 million subvention, while enhancement staff were hired and excavation work conducted around the community to ensure its beautification.

This was revealed by Local Government and Regional Development Minister, Nigel Dharamlall, as he responded to spurious claims made by NDC Chairman Rudolph Adams during a community meeting on Sunday.

The funding being referred to by the chairman, Minister Dharamlall said, was given to large NDCs that were not part of the massive clean-up exercises through the ministry.

As such, the minister said the allocations were made to ensure these communities can partake in the beautification of their environment.

“[When] we were doing the clean up, the big NDCs, that we didn’t do any work in, we gave them some money to do some clean up…many NDCs received it, including opposition-controlled NDCs,” Minister Dharamlall stated.

However, in the community of Mocha, the minister highlighted that several enhancement workers were hired by the ministry to work within the village, and those workers are being paid by the ministry.

Further, the ministry was able to acquire support from the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA) to do excavation works in the community.

This, the minister said, was done following a series of meetings held in the community, from which the NDC Chairman was voluntarily absent.

“We have done a lot of work. We have enhancement workers that work in Mocha that we pay and that the Chairman sometimes gives a very difficult time to. I was in Mocha, and we did some excavation through the Ministry of Agriculture…those were all initiated in the meeting. However, the Chairman of the NDC has never turned up to any of the community meetings, he is always out of the community,” the minister explained.

Minister Dharamlall said that if Adams was serious about development in his community, he would ask about the expenditure of the $500 million grant given to the community under the former administration.

The minister pointed out that upon his assumption of office, many residents lamented the lack of development in the community, although finance was made available.

“What I would like an investigation of is the $500 million or US$2.5 million that Mocha received for agricultural development from the last government and when I went there, the farmers complained that not much was done and the money was spent. So, that is what the chairman needs to account for,” he noted.