The Government must accept responsibility

May 25, 2009 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The government’s excuse for not submitting the sugar development plan on time to the European Union turns out to be an exercise in semantics, a most disgusting situation.

The European Union (EU)’s explanation is quite simple. Guyana was supposed to have submitted the sugar development plan by January 2008. It failed to do so and an extension was granted to the end of March 2008 but this deadline was also missed and by the time Guyana submitted its plan in June of 2008 it was too late.

Guyana therefore lost some 1. 6 billion dollars in support, funds that would have avoided all talk about the sugar corporation having to borrow funds on the international market, funds for which Guyana had long lobbied, especially after the price cuts announced by the EU for sugar.

The government’s explanation of the foul up is that the agreement it signed with the European Union indicated that the sugar corporation should approve the plan by December 31, 2007 and this was extended to March 30, 2008.

The government claims that the sugar corporation approved of the two days before its deadline and this was then forwarded to Cabinet to ensure its consistency with national objectives. The plan was subsequently submitted in June of 2008 by which time it was too late.

The government’s contention is therefore that by approving the plan two days before the deadline, the Board of the Guyana Sugar Corporation met the deadline even though the plan was not submitted to the EU in June of 2008.

The government of Guyana has been dealing with the international bodies for far too long to expect that this sort of explanation will hold any water. For one, it ought to know by now that the EU cannot disburse any founds based on a simple explanation that a plan was approved. The EU must have in its possession a copy of that plan which details just what will be approved.

How can the European Union which itself has its own deadlines to meet in terms of disbursing funds, simply disburse these proceeds months after a deadline on the explanation that the GuySuCo Board did approve the plan? International organizations do not work in this way. They must see the plan and of course have the time to study it. Supposed the plan had stated that Guyana would no longer sell sugar to Europe, do we expect in such a case that the EU would offer the support?

The fact of the matter is that the government should have sent the plan by December 30, 2007. It did not and it needs to be asked why this was not done. The deadline was extended to March 31, 2008 and again no plan was submitted even though we are told that the Board of the sugar corporation had approved a plan and submitted it to Cabinet for review.

The fact of the matter also is that if the sanction of cabinet was required then the plan was not ready by March 31, 2008 since Cabinet could have altered the details of that plan. So what does the government expect? Did it expect that the EU would disburse the funds simply because a plan was presented to Cabinet for approval?

The EU deals with the government of Guyana and it was the responsibility of the government of Guyana to ensure that there was a Cabinet approved plan by Dec 31, 2007.

This ought not to have been difficult to achieve since the sugar company had already developed a strategic plan and must have known the funding and other requirements needed to achieve its objectives. The sugar corporation was also already well advanced in the implementation of that plan since it had secured massive funding from the Chinese government for the construction of a sugar factory. Why then was there no plan ready by December 31, 2008? And why having missed that deadline was again there no approved plan in the hands of the European Union by March 31, 2009?

Instead of answering these questions, the government is engaging in throwing red herrings, asking whether it is a coincidence that the withholding of the funds came at a time when Guyana had opposed the Economic Partnership Agreement.

The EU of course could hardly have been bothered by Guyana’s grandstanding against the EPA. The EU had the rest on the region on its side and it was Guyana which was isolated and which was humiliated by having so say that it would have to sign so as to not face higher tariffs.

The EU in a conciliatory gesture to allow the Guyana government to save face over the EPA controversy did concede to a period review of the EPA but this was a meaningless gesture since the EPA itself contained clauses that would subject it to constant reviews.

When the EU agreed to cut the prices offered for our sugar there were a great many protests against their actions. Included in those protests were the sugar unions and other stakeholders. I wonder now that the government is claiming that it did meet the deadlines set whether those same stakeholders are going to picket the office of the European Community.