Stung…

…by sugar truth
Poor dear!! PM Nagamootoo appears to’ve been stung by some comments your humble Eyewitness made on his “slaughter of the lambs” in the sugar industry. He, after all, assured them before the elections that the sugar industry wouldn’t be closed. His government has been trying to wash away the blood of thousands of fired workers — mostly cane cutters — by claiming they’ll lease lands to them to become cash crop farmers!
Your Eyewitness merely pointed out that cane cutters aren’t farmers; and you can’t make them so with a wave of a want — or the spouting of hot air, as Nagamootoo does. So when he and the folks in the APNU/AFC government blithely talk about turning sugar workers into peasant farmers of cash crops, they’re just full of doo-doo!
Cane cutters are specialists at what they do, and your Eyewitness made an extended analogy, comparing them to ballet dancers; they take years to develop their skills, and just can’t be expected to wake up one morning and become cash-crop farmers. But the sad thing was that it wasn’t your Eyewitness that originally made the point – it was a Trinidadian expert HIS government brought in!!
Trinidad had closed down their sugar industry back in the 1990s, and learnt that lesson the hard way. Nagamootoo should ask how many Trinidadian cane cutters became farmers over there. Did Nagamootoo whine about the Trini’s comment?
But closer at home, Nagamootoo and Granger — whose campaign promise to deliver “the good life” had hopefully extended to sugar workers — can tell the nation how many cane cutters at Wales have been turned into cash crop farmers. It’s been over a year since they unilaterally closed that estate, with 8000 acres of drained and irrigated land. HAS A SINGLE FIRED WORKER BEEN TURNED INTO A FARMER?
Point is: to get the fired workers at Wales into cash crops, the Government has to not only lease the land to them — and we know they haven’t even made an offer. You can’t turn land that’s been prepared to grow sugar, with its specialised cambered beds and drains, into growing bora the next day. Who’s gonna convert the land? That takes a helluva lot of capital!
Then there’s the SMALL point about what crops are they going to plant on those 8000 acres? Bora and baigan? Guyana’s farmers already supply the country with the produce they use. Crops for export? So cane cutters have the wherewithal to research what produce are needed in foreign markets and market produce to fill those needs?
Why the Government hasn’t been able to make their “other crops” option work after decades?
Stop bloviating, Nagamootoo!!
…by Indigenous criticisms
Our national poet, Martin Carter, famously reminded us of the mouth being muzzled by the hand that feeds it. He spoke from experience. Burnham made him Information Minister in his rigged post-1968 government, and he quit within a couple of years! Unlike Nagamootoo, he refused to sell his soul for thirty pieces of silver and an SUV!
Well, the new PNC-in-coalition with the AFC — which rejected Ramkarran’s advice to develop some testicular fortitude — just pulled away the plate from the Indigenous People’s Toshaos Council. The Council requested G$37 million for 2018 — to take care of some big budget items, like revising the Amerindian Act — but all that was allocated in the Budget was a measly G$16 million!
The Toshaos pointed out the anomaly of “I is” Broomes’ housing allowance alone being G$6 million! But we know the difference in the eyes of the APNU/AFC government between Indigenous Peoples and “I is” Broomes, don’t we?
The Toshaos, of course, had the temerity to speak their mind at their last Conference!! How dare they!! Don’t they realise they’re just “natives”??
….President’s overreach
Does David Hinds really believe it’s “bad legal advice” that caused President Granger to traduce the Constitution at least three times?
Fool me once. Shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.
Fool me thrice?