Rose Hall Estate begins rehiring process; over 400 severed workers registered

Sep 21, 2020 News

– assessment of factory complete

A board with vacancies placed at the Rose Hall Estate in Canje.

Workers who were severed from the Rose Hall Estate in 2015 when the previous government opted to close the factories are now seeing the light at the end of a dark tunnel. After nearly two years of being unemployed or forced to find other jobs, the management at the estate has begun to rehire persons.
A senior source attached to the estate confirmed with Kaieteur News that the rehiring process commenced a week ago and thus far over 410 persons have registered to be employed again. Contacted for comment, the Manager of the estate Aaron Dukhia told this publication that, “we are hiring a limited amount of people because what we are doing, we are trying to ensure that those persons who were severed, we are giving emphasis to those people. So in terms of hiring, it is not new people we are trying to get, it is just those that were severed in 2018”.
He disclosed that presently the management of the estate is engaged in preparatory work in terms of hiring persons to assist in clearing the fields “so it’s just a small amount of people we need at this time. As the progress is made then the employment will gain momentum”, he said.
It was disclosed that there is a need to employ persons to clear the fields for mechanical tillage and thus far, “we have a register that showing over 410 persons expressing interest to come back and work. Everybody is anxious to get back to work and many people are waiting for us to call them. Every day they come, we have a small set of staff at the personnel department and we register their names in a book and those who have to be employed will be done immediately.”
Additionally, the manager of the estate stated that the process of rehiring will continue for another month and as the volume of work continues, the employment will increase.
Meanwhile, this publication was informed that the assessment of the factory has since been completed and based on that assessment, officials were able to determine the damages incurred since closure. It was revealed that upon the conclusion of the assessment, vandalism and the overgrowth of the fields were among the many issues noticed. However, now that that exercise is completed work has commenced to get the factory and fields up and running.
The People’s Progressive Party/Civic had campaigned heavily on the reopening of the closed sugar estates that sent thousands of persons into unemployment – the Rose Hall, Skeldon, Wales and Enmore Estates were closed under the APNU+AFC government. Workers who were fired after the closure were given severance pay but many still struggled to maintain their families and eat three square meals a day. The PPP/C had promised to reopen the estates and restore jobs. President Irfaan Ali had stated that the Wales Estate cannot be opened because of the state it is in, adding that all the parts were sold out under the previous government and there was basically a shell remaining. He had mentioned that there was a plan in place to have severed workers employed under a new initiative.

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