Discontinue public ownership of sugar

Jun 09, 2018 Letters

Dear Editor,
In a recent letter to the media I strongly advocated the return of the sugar industry to private ownership or management which is independent of the government. Its current status as a nationalized industry has been largely responsible for its sad decline from profitability under private ownership.
Now it is limping on virtual ‘life-support’ because of ineffective management, low production, poor productivity and continuing losses.
Because no industry can or should continue under such circumstances, I repeated what was also recommended by the Commission of Inquiry into the sugar industry and in this context reminded readers that the industry was indeed performing much better when it was under private ownership or private management contract—an objective fact, not an opinion.
I was therefore most surprised to see in today’s (8/6/18) Kaieteur News, a rather personal letter by a Patricia Persaud implying that my recommendations were not based on objective facts but on my antecedents in the sugar industry.
This, she suggests, were far removed from the struggles of the sugar workers. She apparently has a bias and certainly does not know me; I would therefore recommend that she carefully read my autobiographic account of the sugar industry titled; “A Product of Guyana’s Bitter-Sweet Sugar” which is currently under publication; pro-tem I say not!
Nowrang Persaud

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