“The same price paid in Paramaribo and Wanica must be paid for rice in the interior,” ABOP chairman Ronnie Brunswijk recently said on ABC Actueel.
The parliamentarian recently acquired a rice mill in Nickerie, which is already operational. With his rice mill, he does not want to compete with other rice traders, but merely make some affordable rice available to residents of the interior. In Paramaribo, Wanica and the other surrounding districts, rice can be bought at an affordable price, but this is not the case in the interior.
Residents of the interior have to pay a great deal of money for a bag of rice, and Brunswijk wants to change that. “For example, in Kwamalasamutu, people have to pay a very high price for a bag of rice; those people should also be able to enjoy rice.”
If rice is available in large quantities, it can also be exported, but his focus is on the interior. The ABOP chairman further stated that, during transport to the interior, rice can be delivered to strategic locations in the interior, and people from surrounding villages can purchase their rice from those locations. The government will also be involved in this, so that these people can buy rice at a reasonable price.
