Dear Editor,
A matter of significant public worry has arisen regarding the administration of the rice farmers’ subsidy as instructed by President Irfaan Ali with respect to the payout to the farmers for the second crop of 2025. As reported, the Government of Guyana, through the Ministry of Agriculture, implemented a well-intentioned support measure requested by the President to provide a GUY$300 per bag subsidy to rice farmers for un-milled paddy supplied to the mills. While the initiative itself is commendable, a discrepancy in the reported financial figures has led to legitimate questions concerning accountability and transparency being asked by the incoming Leader of the Opposition Mr. Azruddin Mohamed from the WIN Party.
This is what President Ali instructed: (1) Farmers to receive a GUY$300 support payment for each bag of paddy (un-milled rice) produced for the second crop of 2025; (2) The funds are paid directly to the farmers, based on empirical evidence provided by them of how much paddy was sold to the millers by way of the officially issued millers receipt and this is to be corroborated with the millers’ records to weed out any fake receipts.
The Ministry of Agriculture has publicly stated that the total payout for this programme amounts to GUY$2.1 million. However, the incoming Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Mohamed has presented an alternative calculation, based on his WIN Party’s research, suggesting a total payout of GUY$1.962 million. This difference of GUY$138 million represents a substantial sum of public money, and the conflicting figures understandably require public reconciliation and the onus of such responsibility rest with the custodian of the payout process, the Ministry of Agriculture.
The core of the issue is methodological. The opposition’s calculation is derived from a specific set of data: a disclosure that 218,000 acres of rice lands were harvested by the farmers, with an average estimated yield of 30 bags per acre, resulting in 6.54 million bags of un-milled paddy being supplied by the farmers to the mills. Multiplying this figure by GUY$300 per bag yields the GUY$1.962 million figure. This computation establishes Mr. Mohamed’s figure on a firm foundation.
Unfortunately, the Ministry’s methodology for arriving at GUY$2.1 million has not been made equally public, creating an information asymmetry that fuels public speculation on the matter of leakage around the sum of GUY$138 million.
In such instances, where significant public funds are involved and official figures are contested, the imperative is for the Ministry of Agriculture to proactively disclose its calculation. Taking this path is paramount to preserve the principle of public accountability. In short, the administering agency, the Ministry of Agriculture should provide a verifiable audit trail. This process would ideally include:
Documentation supporting the number of registered farmers who qualified.
Evidence of the farmers’ receipts used to generate the payout to each farmer.
Evidence of the corroborating information from the millers’ records to reconcile with the farmers’ records as described above.
The official response to date from a surrogate of the Ministry of Agriculture in the form of the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) is a rejection of the alternative figures provided by Mr. Mohamed, without publishing the underlying data or a detailed rebuttal of the methodology at how Minister Zulfikar Mustapha arrived at the figure of GUY$2.1 million. This state of affairs falls short of the basic standards of accountability for public funds.
When the public trust is at stake, the most effective course is not merely to deny an allegation but to disprove it with realistic evidence. A transparent disclosure of the relevant datasets and reconciliation process would serve the dual purpose of ensuring accountability and restoring confidence in the Ministry of Agriculture and by extension their Minister. This is not a partisan issue but a governance one. The prudent management of public resources, especially in a critical sector like agriculture, is fundamental.
The National Assembly is the appropriate forum for a detailed examination of this matter and I expect it to be placed there “very soon and very shortly”. It is therefore incumbent upon our representatives to seek clarity in the National Assembly in order to ensure that every dollar of this subsidy reached its intended beneficiaries as per the policy’s design.
A fulsome and transparent accounting from the relevant agencies is the surest way to resolve this discrepancy, uphold the integrity of the programme, and maintain the public’s trust in the administration of national resources.
Rice farmers have to be concerned about this matter because if this GUY$138 million was apparently leaked from the system for purposes not associated with the actual rice farmers, then they would have lost value. If all the money went to the rice farmers, based on the evidence provided by Mr. Mohamed and his WIN Party, it means that they could have gotten GUY$320 per bag of paddy produced which is more than they originally got. This matter must be raised in Parliament when it convenes.