A review of the estates closure

Oct 11, 2018 Letters

Dear Editor
Regarding the closure of the sugar estates which resulted in a variety of responses. Some were, to say the least, were very disturbing. For some reason it took a racial turn with some taking the position that the PPP subsidized sugar and retained sugar because it’s where its support base resided.
Others wrote about how the Indians were stealing fertilizer and insecticide etc. as if this was a trait of Indians and only Indians were involved.
First in the case of PPP subsidizing its support base, those seem to have lost sight of the magnitude of sugar’s connection to the economy. All know of the assistance by the government of the USA to the companies that were too big to fail. And we all should know that agriculture is highly subsidized by the USA.
We seem to have forgotten a number of things. The large numbers of employees were involved, those who were indirectly connected to the Industry, the tax collected, the NIS payments, the contribution to aggregate demand as a result of the earnings and the foreign exchange earned from the export of sugar.
And most of all we seem to have forgotten the humanity involved as thousands of people have been thrown into dire straits not to mention the plight of the children.
In addition, they seem to have forgotten Sugar’s Contribution to the economy. I am sure an accountant would be able to determine a figure but to me it would seem considerable. There is its contribution to drainage, health care, house lots preparation and issue, pure water supply and the subsidization of sugar on the local market.
I suppose many would have forgotten the levy. The sugar levy was imposed, I think in 1976. It was discontinued in 1996. So we have 20 years of contribution. The lowest contribution was US$51 per ton in 1996. This small amount was owing to the fact that the Jagan government pledged to remove the levy so it was reduced at an incremental pace.
Using the lowest extraction of US$51 per ton and using just 200,000 tons, we are looking at about US$204M. If the figures I obtained are incorrect then please supply alternative figures.
This levy directly supported the national budget and resulted in the decapitalization of the factories and inadequate expenditures to maintain efficiency in the fields. Also this affected the wages of the workers and would have affected the moral of the sugar workers.
These actions when compounded resulted in a serious decline in efficiency and as a result the cost of production went up. The amount of sugar produced went down.
Unfortunately instead of examining the various factors that contributed to the decline we blamed the workers.
As I have written before full blame has to be placed at the foot of President Jagdeo. One of the factors was the Skeldon Estate, the corruption and poor work and design. The PPP placed friends and family who knew very little about agriculture.
Rajendra Bisessar
BSc Sociology, LLB

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