By Shemar Alleyne
Though the future of the country’s sugar industry remains unclear, there is a lot of positives with regards to their re-opening.
This is according to General Secretary of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU), Seepaul Narine in an exclusive interview with this publication.
The union representative stated that viewing the industry through an economic lens, the argument for sugar’s minimisation becomes even weaker, but noted that the estates were more than just producers of sugar and molasses but rather they were the hive of activities and represented a beacon of sustenance and hope.
“Sugar when it was doing well it had contributed a lot sum G$2 billion at the US exchange rate, but apart from its direct contribution to the treasury, you also had the fact that it employed so many people and their families who have been dependent on sugar and those businesses and so on that depends on sugar workers’ wages and you also have the drainage of the entire coastal system was more or less done by sugar and the sugar estates has been up keeping that,” Narine stated.
The closure of the four sugar estates at Rose Hall-Canje, Skeldon, (both in Berbice), East Demerara (Enmore to Ogle) and Wales (West Bank Demerara) tossed close to 7500 workers into a financial crisis.
“There has been no Christmas, there has not been any increase by this Government for the past five years and the sugar workers had nothing for Christmas, not even an increase, not a cent,” he remarked.
Moreover, the GAWU executive related that it is clear that the entire sugar policy of the collation Government was done with one intention – that is to punish the sugar workers, their families, and their villages.
“In the state paper, it is said that sugar workers were supporters of the PPP which is absolutely not so because you have so many people working in sugar from different political parties and across the spectrum. If you see the state paper you will see the spitefulness they have against sugar workers,” he cited.
However, despite the plethora of plans that the GuySuCo signalled, the Corporation has repeatedly cried out about lack of financing, resulting in the GAWU also questioning the source of financing for the abovementioned ambitious projects.
In the last four years, the coalition Government, insisting that the sugar industry is bleeding the treasury, has closed four sugar estates, sending home over 7000 workers.
To date, thousands of those fired workers are still struggling to find a job. Many of them often tell of the hardship they face to feed their families. At Wales, West Bank Demerara, children of some of the fired workers are forced to find part-time jobs to help their parents with school expenses.
In May of this year, the Government was preparing to sell off huge swathes of land owned by GuySuCo as part of moves to sell off several loss-making estates. This was being executed even as the Administration prepared to revive interest in the ‘for sale’ assets by local and foreign investors.
The downsizing of the sugar industry has been fiercely resisted by the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU), the parliamentary Opposition and a number of other agencies.
The operations of the La Bonne Intention Estate were amalgamated with those of the Enmore Estate; those at Wales were amalgamated with Uitvlugt and there are plans to privatise Skeldon. But the closure of the estates and the sacking of workers are having an effect on the economy.
