And while the government is committing funds - the cane seasons opens tomorrow - and that money is too late for the cane farmers of Caledonia village in the Corozal district. They say they can't even get four wheel drive pickups into their fields to cut cane because of the awful state of the cane roads. Today they held a protest and led TV-3 on a tour of those roads - where the chairman explained the log-standing urgency:..
Fabian Andy Westby- Branch Chairman, Caledonia
"The tour that we have done today is the main road that we use to take out the production, the main movement right now but we can't even pass with the pickup to carry workers, much less to cut it. And if we manage to cut it and we manage to take it out of the fields and we will bag on a road like this with a low price, it will even make it worse for us. If you can see, most of the road that we have shown today is very difficult for a truck load of cane to come out at this moment. Well, it has been three years that this road hasn't been touched. If you can see also in the tour, the road is already growing grass. It almost doesn't even look like a sugar road anymore. So, that is why we take this tour so that we are not lip servicing but we are showing the government that we really are in need of this sugar road to be fixed; the fastest they can do it. We have heard that they have $300 thousand for Corozal division and $300 for Orange Walk district."
Reporter
"Has any of that $300 thousand trickled to Caledonia?"
Fabian Andy Westby
"No, it hasn't trickled to Caledonia for the past three years. Last year they had also approved monies for sugar roads and Caledonia did not get its share. Next thing I don't understand is why government has to wait so much time to come and fix the road. They can do it before or two months before the crop so that we don't have to go every time and beg for them to come and fix our road."
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