Granger’s shameless claims about sugar workers haemorrhaging treasury

Sep 14, 2018 Letters

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Dear Editor,
My blood boils with wrath and rage right now. Sugar workers whose jobs were mercilessly ripped from them by APNU+AFC are legally entitled to their severance payments, having earned it by sweat and blood, none of them asking for a handout, only what they are legally entitled to. The government, through GUYSUCO, was required by law to make those payments immediately after they ripped away the jobs from sugar workers. There is no “ands, ifs, buts”, no room for ambivalence, no room for excuses, pay the sugar workers their severance with interest now.
Instead of telling the sugar workers when they will be paid their overdue severance, behind their backs, President Granger tells his supporters that paying sugar workers is “haemorrhaging” the treasury. In doing so, he abrogates his responsibility to uphold the laws of Guyana. Instead of sitting with his Finance Minister and his Cabinet to determine a way to meet this legal expense, he makes another arrogant excuse. Clearly, paying the sugar workers their legally entitled severance is too painful for President Granger. In fact, when the decision was made to close four sugar estates, he was obligated to find a way to make severance payment with immediate effect. Failure to do so then and failure to still do so now is reckless, unlawful and is misconduct in office. As pointed out by a Canadian union leader, the ministers responsible for the non-payment would have been jailed in countries like America, Canada, Europe.
The President did not have the decency to meet with sugar workers and tell them that they are “haemorrhaging” the treasury. He has steadfastly and egregiously refused to meet the sugar workers. In more than three years, in spite of all the efforts of sugar workers, since the estates were closed, the President, his Prime Minister and other Cabinet Ministers, never once showed any inclination to meet the sugar workers. Yet behind the backs of sugar workers, in front of his own supporters, the President constantly bemoan the fact that his government must pay sugar workers their severance. Clearly, he considers the payments unfair and undeserving. The President could think what he wants, the fact does not change – sugar workers earned severance and there is no room for prevarication.
As President Granger, his Prime Minister, and their Cabinet continuously complain of the money the government has to invest in sugar, they conveniently ignore that SUGAR pumped close to $100B into the treasury to support government expenditures during the 1980s, including expenses to subsidize bauxite, pay public servants, etc. Even now, SUGAR pays billions for non-sugar drainage and irrigation. investments to support SUGAR is not a handout or a subsidy, as this government wants people to believe and a lie that they deliberately have promoted to their supporters. They have demonized SUGAR and the sugar workers. The President leads in this awful charade, characterizing sugar workers as parasites. This plain political discrimination is the kind of behaviour that forces the UN to include Guyana in a “SHAME LIST” that now includes 38 countries.
Since 2014, APNU+AFC has collected more than $150B in new revenues. This year alone, they are likely to collect $70B more than they did in 2014. In fact, the GRA boasts that in the first half of 2018, they have collected more than $8B than they did in the same period in 2017. How then is the severance that they legally owe the sugar workers a drain on the treasury? Is the additional $1B paid to themselves in the Cabinet in bigger salaries this term also “haemorrhaging” the treasury? Just two weeks ago in his press conference, he assured the nation that the significant pay increases for the APNU+AFC Cabinet has no impact on the treasury. But paying sugar workers their severance is a “haemorrhage” on the treasury. This is elitist and discriminatory.
This is the same government that allowed DDL to walk away with more than $1B that they had owed the government. They simply waved the payments away. The treasury can afford to bypass this huge amount, benefitting a large, rich corporation, but cannot afford to pay poor sugar workers money they earned. Since July 2016, APNU+AFC has paid at least $15M per month in rent and other charges (amounting to $405M so far) for a useless house they deem a medical warehouse in Sussex Street, used to store an outdated-CAT Scan that they claimed is worth $20M, but can be purchased anytime on the used-equipment market in the USA for a fraction that cost. APNU+AFC has illegally spent billions on medicines, but hospitals and health centres never seem to have any. This government has wasted billions in other corrupt transactions and has accepted, without trying to audit, a charge of $US900M ($G180B) from EXXON as their expenses up to June 2018 that EXXON wants to be refunded. This is the same government that is spending over 70% of all new revenues from taxes (amounting to more than $150B between 2015 and end 2017) on themselves and on a bloated bureaucracy that they created as “jobs for the boys”.
Besides, through the SPU attached to NICIL, they have taken a $30B loan guaranteed by SUGAR assets, including the SUGAR lands, which have become another slush fund because, thus far, little to none of that money is going to SUGAR and the sugar workers. Yet the President and APNU+AFC have the temerity to point fingers at sugar workers, accusing them of “haemorrhaging” the treasury. Shameful, disgraceful are not even close in describing the President’s and his government’s anti-sugar workers posture. As much as the President’s posture is disgraceful, the silence of Moses Nagamootoo is total betrayal of the sugar workers. Pay the sugar workers now and stop making excuses.

Yours respectfully
Dr. Leslie Ramsammy

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