Sugar is at death’s door

Jan 25, 2023 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – The PPP/C has failed the sugar industry. No amount of spin-doctoring by its lackeys in the sugar industry can save that industry.

The PPP/C had promised to revive the industry by first bringing it to break-even point and then restoring it to profitability. Is nowhere near bringing the industry to break-even point even with policies aimed at emphasizing the sale of packaged sugar.

Yesterday, during the debate on the 2023 Budget, the Leader of the Alliance For Change decimated the PPPC policies. It was a good performance which shows that once the Opposition stays away from discredited narratives such as “apartheid state” and “installed government” it can be effective in exposing the mediocrity of the PPP/C’s economic programme.

During his presentation, the Leader of the AFC, Khemraj Ramjattan noted that the PPP/C had already injected G$10B into the sugar industry and was now returning to the National Assembly for a further $4B. What the AFC leader did not state is that the PPP/C has published no white paper on restoring the sugar industry to break even status and then to viability. So all we have is an unpublished plan and, as such, there can be no certainty that the PPP/C’s plan will work.

The Leader of the AFC also revealed that the sugar corporation was advertising for workers but was not attracting the workforce it anticipated. This column had long argued that when sugar workers leave the industry, it is almost impossible to get them to return. The work in the fields is back-breaking and unrewarding and with each generation, fewer and fewer persons want to engage in field work.

But the real spoke which has been placed in GUYSUCO’s plans has originated outside of the corporation. Jagdeo’s part-time jobs plan will sound the death-knell of the industry. With part-time workers earning a handsome $40,000 per month for ten days work, the opening of the Canje Estate is now virtually dead.

The part-time jobs which are provided by the government will further destroy the sugar industry.  Because of the nature of cane cutting, most workers cannot work every day. Their bodies simply cannot withstand the arduous strain of working five or six days per week. It is too much. This is why, there is usually such a poor attendance record on the estates. It is not that the workers do not want to work; it is that the workers need recovery time after a few days’ exertions in the fields.

The part-time jobs have been like free money. The output of many of these part-time workers is poor. Some of them do a little superficial weeding and cleaning but they are making no significant impact on their communities. Many can be seen malingering under the offices of the NDC’s, most of which lack the resources to properly deploy or supervise these workers. Others can be seen loitering around the hospitals to which they are assigned.  The part-time programme, which is now going to be expanded, is a colossal waste of money.

Why would any cane cutter who can earn $40,000 per month for working ten days doing light work, want to sign on to work again for the sugar industry where he would have to wake up before daylight, go out on the roads while it is still dark, be transported miles into the cane fields on treacherous dams and engage in backbreaking work, when there is light work available and which guarantees $40,000 per month?

The government, by expanding the part-time jobs programme is going to destroy the very industry which it wishes to save. But even without the part-time programme, the government will be unable to save sugar.

The APNU+AFC government had spoken about right-sizing the industry. But it makes no economic sense for a sugar industry which once produced more than 400,000 tons to produce only 150,000 tonnes.

Producing less means that you will not enjoy the economies of scale needed to lower production costs. The PPP/C’s answer to this was that it would concentrate on selling branded and packaged, rather than bulk sugar.

The APNU+AFC never achieved that revised target under its right-sizing. The PPP/C appears to want to outdo the APNU+AFC when it comes to declining sugar production. Last year, only 47,000 tonnes were produced. It makes no sense continuing with sugar production, much less to invest billions more in reopening an estate which has little prospects of allowing GUYSUCO to triple sugar production.

But do not tell that to the PPP/C. Manifesto promises are meant to be kept, even when they constitute a terrible drag on the economy and will result in billions being pumped into an industry which can no longer be revived.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of this newspaper and its affiliates.)

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• Alliance For Change, Khemraj Ramjattan, Leader of the AFC, Peeping Tom, PPP/C

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