A national problem requires a national solution, not self-serving ones

Jan 07, 2018 AFC Column, Features / Columnists

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Earlier this week, GAWU, the union that is owned and controlled by the opposition People’s Progressive Party, appeared to welcome announcements by Demerara Distillers Ltd that it has an interest in any of the sugar estates where molasses is produced, because it obviously has a deep and abiding interest in ensuring that adequate supplies of the commodity are available for its rum production.
To some in both the industry and government, this must be good news to the ears but from leaders in GAWU, we often wonder why suggestions of this nature were not put in the public domain before.
Too many in society, including GAWU executives and members, put most of the pressure about GuySuCo and the sugar sector on the government, despite the businesses and communities, for example, who directly benefit or depend on the services that GuySuCo provides.
For years there had been demands for the government to keep pumping billions of dollars into the sector at the expense of teachers, soldiers, nurses, the police, and other deserving citizens within the various areas of national life.
The coalition government must consider itself quite lucky that unions representing civil servants and others have not stepped up their agitation for a better deal.
That these union leaders and members continue to be patient as they sit and watch the finance ministry pump more than $40 billion dollars into a problem-plagued, money-losing, debt-ridden sector for the past three years. They still see the sugar industry wanting to be financially spoon fed as the previous government heedlessly did for their own benefit did.
Despite it being clear as day that pumping billions into GuySuCo is like throwing money into a black hole, GAWU, the PPP and its allies continue to demand that the heavy subsidies continue at the expense of other sectors. They refuse to work with the sugar industry to acquaint themselves with the beneficial programs and opportunities being offered for ex-sugar workers so that they are better able to inform their membership. Again for their own gain, they have chosen to sit on the sidelines and criticise.
They spew propaganda to their membership that this government is uncaring yet they offer no ideas to help the situation.
Unlike the PPP, this coalition government does not wish to make false promises like Mr. Jagdeo, who told ex-workers in Berbice that he would pay them an additional salary outside of their severance pay if voted back into office.
How careless and disrespectful – giving out free money to sugar workers for votes while completely ignoring other sectors that work overtime to hold up an economy that the ailing sugar industry is helping to destroy.
It therefore makes perfect sense that companies like DDL and others with umbilical cords attached to sugar, would want to throw their hats in the ring and offer solutions to what is clearly a national problem, requiring a national solution. Not self-serving ones.
This coalition government is actually working not only to rehabilitate the entire sugar industry, but to also empower workers who have been laid off from various levels of the company. The amount of ongoing professional training programs, workshops and business seminars to encourage self-employment and entrepreneurship will speak for itself. As plans for the workers intensify, more progress will be seen soon, especially as the government plans heightened publicity on these programs, so that the nation, and especially those affected by the revamping, can see that government’s intensions are genuine and indeed geared toward benefiting those who require it most.
The coalition government is not offering free money. We are not buying votes. We are trying to build a strong nation by empowering our people.Some stakeholders would want to continue bleeding this nation rather than working with the new administration in this bold, yet necessary step to save the industry and most importantly the workers. If the industry was not subsidized for all those years, the industry would have already collapsed and massive job loss would be the case. This coalition government cannot continue this economically unsound and cowardly act.
Maybe it was best said by former PPP member and minister, Robert Persaud in his Facebook post when he described the true colours of the PPP and by extension GAWU.
He stated, “Fact to ponder #2018Guyana
#IAmHopeful – Maybe the New Year’s festivities caused many not to notice a ‘masterful’ textbook political stroke (albeit a sad and disastrous one for thousands of sugar workers), the country’s old, grand political entity was guilefully outmaneuvered and basically defanged with the inadvertent help of a sugar union that has lost its way many moons ago.The colonialists nor the Burnham regime was not able to pull off such a political ‘feat’ of basically disabling a political group without recourse to violent and unconstitutional acts. But what took place across the sugar belt on the eve of 2018 will reverberate beyond 2020 and change the complexion of Guyana’s politics forever.
The term ‘defang’ must now enter the national political lexicon of our country. Will it be a harbinger for genuine national unity and a changed political attitude? Only time will tell and how the affected sugar workers and their families allow themselves to be (mis)led through the tough and stricken times.
Possible is that in addition to the logical economic restructuring of the estate-based economies, this tribulation can herald a much needed socio-cultural renaissance in the sugar belt and a form of existential economic and political liberation. #IAmHopeful #2018Promise #ParadoxicalHappenings”

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