…in agriculture
The agony at Wales continue, as the severance payments of the 1400 who received them run out. The picketing exercise by the 300+, who are still fighting being treated like slaves and indentured servants who had no labour agreement, brought this out clearly from their placards and cries. How many “pointer brooms” can they sell to survive, when there is no other alternative?
The workers’ call for the dismissal of Agriculture Minister Noel Holder is not just because of the spiteful withholding of their severance. This is the man who, back in December 2016, did not even have the decency to show up and tell the workers face-to-face that Wales would be shuttered and they would be fired. But it would seem that the workers are too late with their calls for Holder’s head; another section of the press has stated that GuySuCo has been removed from his portfolio and placed with NICIL.
Now, the Special Purposes Unit (SPU) within NICIL had already been given responsibility for disposing of the four estates that were closed by the Government. Does this wholesale dumping of the entire sugar industry into their arms translate into a confirmation of your Eyewitness’s prediction that sugar is kaput?? If Holder was universally adjudged to be totally unqualified to run agriculture, what can one say about the SPU, which was specifically cobbled together to do nothing but sell off the closed estates?? To a hammer, everything is a nail; and we can just see the SPU recommending hammering the last nail in the coffin of sugar.
As your Eyewitness bemoaned, the fact that the Finance Minister (who’s in charge of NICIL) can talk about re-opening Skeldon and Enmore to produce only molasses shows how hapless he and the rest of his accountants are about the nitty-gritty of sugar production. To these fellas it’s all about the numbers, and to hell with the human lives that hang in the balance by those numbers.
Your Eyewitness doesn’t think this Government would listen; they obviously intend to make their political point, and punish 17,000 workers whom they see as “PPP supporters”. If that were not the case, they would have long solved the challenge in the sugar industry. The sugar factories were not the problem – with the exception of Skeldon – the problem was producing sugar cane efficiently. But private farmers showed that was not a problem, since they were able to consistently deliver twice the yields of GuySuCo.
Maybe the accountants may be the ones to say the emperor has no clothes.
And lease the lands to workers while selling off the factories!
…in oil negotiation
Your Eyewitness wants to make one thing clear on our oil revenue prospect against the background of his criticism of “Nassau” Trotman’s (mis)handling of the oil contract: He’ll have no truck with those who say that “oil don’t spoil”; implying that “Nassau” could’ve walked away from the negotiation table with Exxon. Oil mightn’t spoil, but its price can plummet to levels that Exxon could walk away from.
With the coming age of renewables and electric cars, our oil will take several decades to be exhausted, and can easily face a glut that’ll force prices below US$40/bl. The head of British Petroleum just the other day predicted reaching Peak Oil Demand by 2030. It’s best to take as much as we can get up front.
The point is this: Trotman was so out of his league that he wasn’t even playing in the same game with Exxon. He was a softball player in a hardball league!
What has to be done is to renegotiate with Exxon: they know they have to make as much profits RIGHT NOW.
They don’t want to be held up in litigation.
…in rice shell game
Poor rice farmers: they’re no match for the slick operator Doerga, who always plays the angles. Right now he’s playing a shell game – perfected by the offshore bankers – with front companies to avoid paying for paddy. Now you see it…now you don’t!!