Despite the closure of four massive sugar estates and the firing of over 7000 workers under his tenure in office, caretaker President David Granger believes that his Administration has “preserved” the industry.
He shared this position during at a campaign rally at Leonora on West Coast Demerara on Friday evening. Granger addressed the gathering as Presidential Candidate for the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance for Change (APNU/AFC) coalition, as the date for the polls draws nearer.
Shortly after his Administration took office back in 2015, estates along the sugar belt at Wales, Skeldon, Rose Hall and Enmore were closed leaving thousands jobless. However, Granger is of the belief that operations across the industry are intact.
“We had to make a hard decision but we thought hard and long and we said we must protect and preserve this sugar industry in Region Three. We protected the sugar industry. In East Berbice, we protected the sugar industry…and we protected the sugar industry in West Demerara,” the told the gathering.
During a visit to Wales last year, retrenched workers told Times International that they were still struggling to find jobs. While they were promised lands by Government to supplement their income, this was never fulfilled.
In their campaign for the March polls, Granger has yet again promised land distributions should his party emerge successful at the polls. This was the same promise given to Wales’ workers in 2016 but was never materialised.
“We did not throw Wales under the bus. We amalgamated Wales and Uitvlugt. We are going to establish a State Land Resettlement Commission so that people who have been put out of work because they had been on the sugar plantations will be given access to lands so that they can start all over again. We’re not leaving the sugar workers on their own,” he stated.
With the Wales Estate being closed, there had been much interest in the land left behind, particularly for farmers. In fact, earlier this year, land from the Wales Sugar Estate was snapped up by local and overseas farmers and over a thousand acres was set aside for rice cultivation.
In 2017, almost a year after the estate was closed down, the Government had claimed that the decision to offer the land to the fired workers was to have them employed in feasible alternative ventures.
Extra Virgin Coconut Products (EVCP) and Amazonia Expert Services Incorporated (AESI) are the two companies who received 680 acres of land from the estate’s assets. However, a statement emanating from the companies admitted that EVCP negotiated the lease long before the AESI was created. Alec Paul Singh, a retrenched worker from Wales, had told this publication that he was one of many persons who applied for a plot of land but this arrangement never materialised.
“They said that they would share the land to the cane cutters them, [so] that they could do farming and maintain the family and children. We apply and we didn’t get. They get us going all over to find out. We ask them what would be the rental for this land and nobody don’t know. Nothing they couldn’t tell we but we still apply and hope that land would come through,” he recalled during an interview last year.
He had added, “We feel neglected because we supposed to get the first opportunity for the land because all my grandparents and father turn the soil for this estate and we have no benefit to get. Things very rough here”.
