The sugar industry; countries are not run by sentiments

Mar 03, 2017 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

There is no question in my mind that there are decent, nationalistic Guyanese who want to save the sugar industry. They want to save it not out of deep economic thinking, not out of the realistic changes that are inherent in life, but out of sentiments. A government cannot expand an economy and shape its future without income. It is income that is used to give a nation the things that are necessary for it to come out of poverty and allows for it to develop.
The sugar industry was once coterminous with the nation of Guyana. The sugar industry is one of the fulcrums on which the history of this country rests. Eras, epochs, times come and they go; the era of Guyana’s sugar industry is gone.
The sugar industry does not contribute income to Guyana that it can use to develop the country. One explanation is available for that – Guyana cannot sell sugar on the world market to make a profit. The reason for that is because of an era that has passed. That era allowed sugar to keep Guyana alive – the British, then the European subsidy in which our sugar was bought at a special arrangement. It was a period when Guyana was given preferential treatment which translated into guaranteed prices.
When the European subsidy went, there was a monster existing all this time that Guyana never saw, and whose face only became known to Guyana when the European guaranteed prices were removed – global competition. With European preferences out of the way, Guyana had to compete with India, Australia, Brazil, the US, Mauritius and many other countries, too numerous to mention. We cannot compete with those countries. Their cost of production is way below us. Simply put, the time for sugar is over.
It doesn’t look like GuySuCo is going to make a profit in the coming years. So the State has to pump billions into it. That cannot be acceptable to many other sectors in this country that will have legitimate reasons to rebel. A poor country like this cannot subsidize an industry by billions each year with no prospect that the industry can remain alive. This is the sad reality with sugar. Some figures that have been released by the Government following Cabinet discussions are shocking, and that is putting mildly. Unless those figures are fictional, then this state of affairs should not be accepted by the people of Guyana.
A sugar estate worker receives $200, 000 monthly, with a manager’s salary ranging from $800, 000 to one million. This is from an industry that is not contributing to the Treasury. Here is where I return to the point I made above about other sectors. How can teachers and policemen and other public sector workers accept salaries far less than sugar estate workers earn, and that sector does not bring in money to the country?
I have read several arguments from educated people about the sugar industry and if you study their appeals carefully, they are coated with sentimental yearnings of the past glory of sugar. They all ignore the brutal fact that the world since 1950 has changed, and it took sugar with it.
I find it hard to understand this type of reasoning. The tobacco industry in the US is gone. The USSR is gone. Apartheid is gone. There is no longer a country named Czechoslovakia. There are now online newspapers you can read on your phone in the train. These are just samples of how the world has been transformed since sugar was king in Guyana.
Can sugar be saved and become an earner for the economy? My heart tells me I would like to see that. My mind tells me that I would like to see that. If there is a formula to save sugar let it be published right now so the nation can see it. As for the workers, my heart bleeds for them. There should be the consideration of every one of us who live in this country.
Before the sugar industry is officially closed, those workers, every one of them without exception, should be given an alternative occupation through employment or free land; and by free, I mean free in every sense of the world. Putting more than twenty thousand persons out of work with about 60,000 family members adversely affected cannot and must not be accepted by the people of this country. This is simply lunacy. If you cannot find work for them, then let the subsidized sugar industry remain.
Can it be saved? I am not an economist.

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