The President’s ostensible challenge has become a nightmare for thousands

May 25, 2019 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,

The GAWU saw a Newsroom article titled “President identifies sugar woes as major challenge during four-year in office” in which His Excellency President David Granger offered certain comments regarding the sugar industry and his Government’s approach to the industry.
From the article, our Union noticed the President reportedly said that “…the sugar industry was already in a state of decline when his Government was elected to office in 2015”.
The state-of-affairs of the sugar industry were obviously no secret. The July 18, 2014 Stabroek News reported that the Parliamentary Economic Services Committee chaired then by Dr Carl Greenidge, was apparently fully briefed and made aware of the situation in the industry.
Certainly, President Granger would have had that information at hand when he spoke about the sugar industry as was captured in a March 18, 2015 Inews report.
According to that report, the President is reported to say that “…APNU/AFC will not “dissolve” Guyana’s sugar industry but rather would like to see a turnaround plan for the future of sugar”. The article also quotes His Excellency as saying “[t]here is no quick fix…it is too big to fail” as well as saying “[w]e are not going to throw the sugar industry through the window”.
Soon after President Granger and his Government took office, His Excellency’s running mate, Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo at the 2015 Enmore Martyrs observances announced that a Commission of Inquiry regarding the sugar industry would be pursued.
The June 18, 2015 Kaieteur News quoted the Prime Minister to have said that “[t]he commission… will talk to the sugar workers and find out from (them) what can be done to save sugar”. That Commission, as the nation well knows, spent considerable time, efforts and monies and its report was handed over to the Administration in mid-October, 2015.
According to a December 02, 2015 Demerara Waves report, former Minister of State, Joseph Harmon, was quoted as saying that “the commissioners… worked on the comprehensive report…”. The former Minister is also reported to have said, in the lastly mentioned article, that “…President David Granger’s instruction that any deliberation of the sector must take into consideration that it is a national matter”.
Nevertheless, armed with this comprehensive report, President Granger and his colleagues decided to close Wales Estate and promised the workers, their families and the communities that non-sugar diversification would take the place of cane cultivation and sugar processing. As the Newsroom report indicated, those diversification plans are “…yet to get off the ground”.
Not done there, the Government went on to close East Demerara, Rose Hall and Skeldon Estates. Those closures came after the Government received submissions from our Union and also heard the serious concerns of the Opposition. All in all, approximately 7,000 workers have been thrown out of jobs; thousands of young Guyanese dreams of betterment have been shattered; in some instances, families have broken up, among the myriad of problems that have now taken root in the communities of the closed estates.
So today, while the President confesses that sugar was a major challenge for his Government, though he was fully aware prior to him taking office of the challenges and was given advice on how to right the situation, he and his colleagues ignored the sensible solutions provided. It obviously raises questions of whether there was a pre-conceived position taken and Guyanese were merely witnessing a sleight of hand. Whatever may be the case, while the President laments, out in rural Guyana thousands of former sugar workers, their families and their villages are suffering. They are facing probably the hardest time in their lives and they don’t know who or where to turn to. So the President’s ostensible challenge has become a nightmare for thousands.
Yours faithfully,
Seepaul Narine
General Secretary
GAWU

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