WPA singled out for unfair criticisms based on hearsay and biasness

Jul 02, 2021 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,

I refer to Mr. Vishnu Bisram’s letter published in Kaieteur News Friday June 25, 2021 edition, captioned “WPA&AFC could have saved the sugar estates.” Editor, a more appropriate caption would exclude the mention of the AFC since Bisram’s missive is a propaganda blast against the WPA and is part of an organised orchestrated campaign against the party which is pervasive in the newspapers.
To substantiate my contention, I will cite the following: The WPA is mentioned in the letter 8 times; the AFC once; Clive Thomas 7 times; Rupert Roopnarine once; the AFC’s Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo 2 times; the AFC Minister of Agriculture Noel Holder once. A quick tabulation will show that WPA and its personnel are mentioned 16 times in Bisram’s letter, and the AFC and its personnel are mentioned three times. Based on the above tabulation, any objective reader will agree that the WPA was the principal target of Bisram’s rage.
It is not my intention to deal with Bisram’s letter in a detailed manner. The letter, when contextualised in terms of a “blame game,” places the WPA and Clive Thomas as scapegoats for the government’s decision to close sugar estates.
Bisram and the anti-WPA detractors are aware that while Thomas and the GuySuCo Board had the authority to formulate proposals/plans for the future of estates, the decision to accept/reject those plans or implement different initiatives resided in the APNU+AFC cabinet and not the GuySuCo Board. The record would show that the government rejected the Thomas/Board’s comprehensive plan for the right sizing of GuySuCo operations to get the corporation back to profitability. Bisram/Dev are also aware that the decision to close the Rose Hall, Skeldon and Enmore estates was made by the AFC and announced publicly by its Minister of Agriculture, Noel Holder, without the prior agreement of the cabinet. And this has nothing to do with Clive Thomas. The cabinet subsequently endorsed the decision and later implemented its plan that closed the estates.
Another aspect of the propaganda sheet is information on visits to India and Trinidad by the Bisram/Dev outfit for potential investors for the estates. From their account, at no point and time did they approach Thomas and the GuySuCo board but write, “…I found out from my meetings with local investors and private cane farmers that Clive Thomas was not keen at having local investors take over the estates or to stop the closure.” The Bisram/Dev outfit had no interest in checking the accuracy of the information received or putting their proposals for the divestment of GuySuCo estates to Clive Thomas and the GuySuCo board. After the privatisation unit was given the responsibility for divestment of the estates, the proposals for the two estates were submitted. Readers should note by this time that the future of GuySuCo and its assets was not in the hands of the Thomas/board. The Bisram/Dev outfit chose to rely on hearsay, that is, that Thomas was not open to local investors and had no interest in stopping the closure of estates. This question I pose to these “noble” fighters for sugar workers: explain why on this matter the GuySuCo board was not approached or sent one of the many proposals they had worked on for the divestment of sugar estates?
Every time our detractors attribute to the WPA power and influence in the APNU+AFC coalition government that we never had, we are vindicated – we are not “dead,” as they opportunistically declare. Bisram wrote, “Clive Thomas, Rupert Roopnarine and Nagamootoo had a lot of clout in the government.” Note the order of the names in parceling out greater responsibility to the WPA than the AFC. I will not speak for the AFC. On numerous occasions, I had pointed out in previous polemics the WPA’s marginalised position in the coalition government. It is no secret that the WPA was not consulted on the government’s decision to end the Walter Rodney COI. And we could not stop the removal of Roopnaraine from the Education Ministry, and we are expected to force the government to change its decision to close the sugar estates.
When it suits our detractors, the WPA has tremendous power and influence in the government and the political equation, and on other occasions, they taunt us on our marginalised position in the coalition and our ‘dead’ status. The Bisram/Dev outfit wanted the WPA to do what Charrandas Persaud did to bring down the government, that is, threaten “to walk from the government over the issue.” The letter continues, ” … It clearly showed that the WPA and elements of other coalition partners were not very keen in the protecting the sugar workers whose votes were responsible for their being in office.” If the WPA had claimed one of those sugar workers vote there would be endless letters cussing us out. However, today the WPA, a party that had about two percent stakes in the coalition government has a greater responsibility to sugar workers than the AFC enjoyed with 40 percent of the government!
I end this response to Mr. Vishnu Bisram/Ravi Dev by stating that apart from their hostility to the WPA and their own suspect political culture and character, their consistent attacks on WPA demonstrates a paradoxical acknowledgement of the WPA’s strength in this society past and present. Perhaps we should thank Bisram and Dev for consistently keeping the so-called deceased party in the public domain

Yours faithfully
Tacuma Ogunseye

Publisher’s Note: Mr. Ogunseye as well as other contributors to our letter pages are hereby advised that exchanges will be limited at the discretion of the editor to allow for diversity in contributions.

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