Justify request for $6B GuySuCo bailout - AFC

Justify request for $6B GuySuCo bailout – AFC

Apr 02, 2014 News

Government, through Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport, Dr. Frank Anthony, has declared that sugar is too big to fail, but the Alliance For Change (AFC) has adopted the stance that if Government cannot justify its request for a more than $6B bailout, then that party will not support it.
This is according to Dr. Veerasammy Ramayya of the AFC who was the first representative of that party to make a presentation to the 2014 Budget debate on Monday last.
Dr. Ramayya described the 2014 Budget as “bitter coffee with no milk and sugar”. The AFC, he said, made the right decision to boycott the “fantasy speech” of the Minister of Finance when he presented the Budget
According to Dr. Ramayya, following a study of the 2014 budgetary estimates, it is clear that the needs of the majority of Guyanese will again go unmet “and the aspirations of our youth will continue to go unrealized.”
Dr. Ramayya told the House that the 2014 estimates were designed as a pre-electioneering Budget to fool rural Guyana. He drew reference to the decline of the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) and said that “the leakage of the cup is a decline of Dr. Cheddi Jagan’s legacy”.
In seeking to qualify the latter statement, he drew reference to a recent statement made by Dr. Jagan’s daughter, Nadira, when she said that certain elements of the party have separated themselves from the values Dr. Jagan shared, such as fighting for the working class citizens.
“When I look at some of the things happening I think my parents could have been turning in their graves if they were buried, but they must be churning up in the waters of the rivers in which their ashes were thrown,” Dr. Ramayya quoted the former president’s daughter as expressing.
In speaking to the woes of the sugar industry, Dr. Ramayya was adamant that the more than US$200M spent on the Skeldon Sugar Factory could have rehabilitated all of the other estates countrywide, “rather than to keep this transfusion of taxpayers’ money to operate a factory below 25 per cent production and no electricity as boasted about from the inception.”
He stressed that it was poor management and administrative conduct that has sunk the sugar industry.
Dr. Ramayya reminded that in 2011 the House was told that more than $10B had been injected into the industry, but despite that, it continues to struggle.
“He (Finance Minister Dr. Ashni Singh) now has the audacity to now come and tell the nation that after spending all this money in the sugar belt, that sugar production contracted 15 per cent.”
According to Dr. Ramayya, the Skeldon Sugar factory remains the principal reason behind the expensive cost of production and no one is being held accountable.
“I challenge them to call the local government elections so that the people in the sugar belt can speak directly to them,” Dr. Ramayya said.
The AFC parliamentarian told the House that the current Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy was “given a basket to fetch water” when he assumed the portfolio, “but he cannot come here and ask for a further $6B without a clear and detailed plan on what this money will be used for.”
According to Dr. Ramayya, “the AFC in principle stands with the sugar workers and their families and we shall vote for any funds for the sugar belt once there is a clear justification for the request.”
He said that the AFC has always stood with the workers in the sugar belt, “but we are not pagalee,” to provide billions for Government to squander.

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