The dissatisfied rice farmers who have been camping out and protesting outside of the Nickerie District Commissioner’s Office for several days and who have formed a union namely the BPN made it clear in their second petition  that they want President Chandrikapersad Santokhi and Vice President Ronnie Brunswijk to travel to the Nickerie District so that solutions or alternatives could be found. They also handed over the second petition which is addressed to the president to DC Senrita Gobardhan. The rice farmers also made it clear that they are dissatisfied with the fact that the government has only put aside SRD 60 million for them as compensation for the financial losses that they suffered these past couple of months.

They reminded the president that he himself had promised to pay each one of them SRD 10,000 per hectare. The farmers explained that SRD 2,000 per hectare is not enough to cover all of their losses. The BPN has demanded to see the list of farmers who have been selected to receive the financial injection. After DC Gobardhan had received the petition that was signed by about 500 rice farmers, she assured the farmers that it would be delivered to the addressee. …[+]