Member of the National Parliament MP Ana Ribeiro said the irrigation infrastructure across four regional locations – Kasameta, Sobabere, Ososege and Dareisi – in Seixal in the Municipality of Baucua, are broken and have since been abandoned.
The MP added this is unacceptable because most communities in the Suku of Seixal live off farming and need water to be able to irrigate their farms.
“The irrigation systems are damaged and have been abandoned, so water is not being supplied to the community farms,” said MP Ribeiro at the National Parliament, in Dili.
She added that the Sabobere irrigation system supplies water to communities across six different sukus Buibau, Kaivaras, Buruma, Bahu, Samalari and Sesal suku. These communities have not farmed for the last five years because they do not have access to water.
“The communities of the six sukus have not been farming rice for five years,” she said.
This has happened with other irrigation system. Another issue is the poor construction of the irrigation systems. In 2014 despite an irrigations system flooded and destroyed close to 60 hectares of the communities’ rice fields.
In response to this issue, the Ministry of Agriculture and Fishery (MAF) Eng. Estanislau da Silva acknowledged being aware of the issues and added that currently the government is working hard to repair the broken irrigations systems.
“Some of them are under repair while some others are not because it takes time to resolve these issues” said Minister da Silva.
