I see the future and I’m glad sugar is not in it

Feb 12, 2016 Letters

Dear Editor,
Mr. Fitz McLean must be given a grand prize for galvanising the issues surrounding the closure of Wales Sugar Estate. He has eloquently and in business like manner shed light on the way forward for Wales’ diversification, and also what could be done to the other Demerara Sugar estates when their time for closure would comes. Those who have weakened the sugar industry to the extent that it has been brought to bankruptcy, had better be glad that there does not exist jurisprudence to haul them before the courts of Guyana to answer for crimes committed against the owners of GuySuCo, in other words against the people of Guyana. Let us leave them in the capable hands of the venerable Dr. Thomas, the Grim Reaper of the Corrupters.
Had the PPP been returned to power, one wondered how they would have resolved the matters affecting the sugar industry at present? Where were the sugar unions when the mismanagement began to be incubated? We recall one such union leader or is he a contractor of labour remarked, “the battle has just began”. Well there will be no war. We can collectively resolve the issues. The union leader maybe have his own internal battles to fight.
Recall the extravagant misdemeanour of top level management. The successive mismanagement of GuySuCo Boards over 23 years in power. A Chairman who served for number of years treating the spares stores of the Corporation as his private store room. People borrowing tractors for their own rice cultivation and such un-reported goings-on. We can write volumes of wrong doings by officials of this sacred cow GuySuCO.
When sugar prices declined by one third, and the European Union provided developmental funds to cushion the fallen prices from 2006 and onwards, none went to the sugar industry to buffer the loss of preferential prices. Those who gathered at Moray House may have never visited Wales and surrounding areas to witness the living conditions of residents. The large percentage of un-employed and under-employed persons, and those who have no hope, would be willing to share their experiences. We are speaking of the entire West Bank from Versailles to points beyond Free & Easy even to Georgia, where people eke out an existence unknown to city slickers. There is poverty of unspeakable proportions in these areas. Sugar is responsible for this degradation. Sugar caused our people’s woes in the enslavement period. Now let sugar go in peace.
We are not talking about drugs, violence, all the ills of humans living in sub-human conditions. Such discussion requires lots of newspaper space.
During rainy season visit Patentia to see the water logged drains, condition of streets, bridges etc. Sisters village and all the living areas aback of the main roads.
Compare the living conditions just mentioned with Canals Numbers 1&2, where people are healthier, more prosperous and maybe happier. All because they grow food for themselves and the local market and for export. The absence of fully cultivated lands in the old villages is evidence of lack of resources. This article cannot get into the planning of the processes for the disadvantaged and the inarticulate. It can point with conviction to the life styles of the residents of the Canals. All of the West Bank can imitate the Canals for the good or better life, envisaged by the President of the Republic, and now that attention will be placed to Cooperatives, we can only dream of how the lives of our people would improve.
That the entire West Bank can emerge as another food basket, this time the largest food basket in Guyana as described by Mr. McLean is achievable. The West Bank is close to airport, seaport, the capital. The WB is well placed geographically for all sorts of reasons, chiefly being that all sorts of investors can access the area for commerce, establishment of cottage industries, and so on. With the end of sugar, it being the hindrance to real development, we can have a new beginning..
We produce sugar and sell it at a loss. Is it not ironic that those who holler not to close down a loss making entity would be the same people who manage and, in many ways profit from the wages of the sugar workers, who labour in the sun and rain to make a daily wage. The accountants, business people, be they rum shop owners, pawn shop operators and all do-gooders, people who work, live, sleep in air-conditioned comfort, must fall out of this discussion, and let those who bear the greatest hardships finally have their say as to how they wish to put a stop to their hardship.
Hafiz Rahman

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I see the future and I’m glad sugar is not in it

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