President David Granger, in his crusade to close sugar, this week deemed sugar “a burden on the taxpayers”. Yet Granger and the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) are silent on the subsidy of electricity in Linden; a subsidy that has amounted to more than billion so far, and the 0 billion (at today’s value) subsidy GUYMINE received in the 1980s. In the case of sugar, viewed as People’s Progressive Party (PPP)-support base, assistance is too burdensome on taxpayers; in bauxite, an APNU/AFC support base, it is a national and moral obligation. The bottom line here is that APNU/AFC is blatantly discriminatory in how national assets are utilised.
Sugar still has a viable role in the social and economic development of Guyana. The recent difficulties do not represent the first time sugar has encountered a difficult era. It has experienced severe difficulties many times in its gloried history in Guyana. In the 1980s, sugar was on its death bed. Its production fell to below 130,000 tons in 1990. But recover to 300,000 tons during the 1990s. We know the problems and there are feasible solutions. Abandoning sugar for political recrimination is repugnant.
Sugar is not a mendicant with its hands out begging. In difficult times, it is asking for repayment. As Agriculture Minister, I insisted that we needed to pay back sugar for the money we extracted over the years from the industry. The levy which Burnham imposed on sugar and which the PPP ended in 1997 ripped off the industry of more than $75 billion (more than $100 billion in today’s worth). In addition, the European Union (EU) funding to the national budget since 2010, amounting to more than $25 billion so far, was earned by sugar, as a compensation for the EU arbitrary ending of the 1976 sugar protocol. Thus, while APNU/AFC continues to talk about the “burden to taxpayers”, the truth is they are really repaying sugar for what it is owed. This does not even take into consideration the other current contributions of sugar, including, but not limited to, drainage and irrigation in Regions Three, Four, Five and Six.
What Granger knows and is not telling the people is that when bauxite was GUYMINE, in the 1980s, hundreds of millions of US dollars (at today’s value worth more than US$1.5 billion or more than GY$300 billion) were provided as subsidy to prop up bauxite. There was never a bauxite levy and so the assistance to bauxite was a genuine subsidy. The PPP did not oppose the subsidy since we saw it as a national obligation to save a national industry. Cheddi Jagan kept politics out of the decision. The support to sugar is a faction of the past and present subsidy to bauxite and is what Guyana owes sugar.
That bauxite subsidy in the 1980s does not include the present day electricity subsidy in Linden. In 2017, the subsidy will be more than $2.5 billion – the subsidy to Linden is worth more than GY$75 billion from 1994 to now. The PPP had signalled since 2001 that the electricity subsidy would be phased out. After many years, in 2012, we proposed a gradual removal of the electricity subsidy in Linden. At the time, the national average consumption of electricity was about 48 KWH. The consumption in Linden was 150 KWH. It was virtually free in Linden and, therefore, no incentive to safe on consumption. The average cost of electricity nationally was about $64 per KWH. In Linden, they were paying about $5. We proposed in 2012 that pensioners should continue to enjoy the subsidy and that others should pay about $30, less than 50 per cent of what other Guyanese were paying, and that gradually all Guyanese would pay the same. This led to the 2012 violent and deadly protest instigated by APNU/AFC.
In their haste to close sugar as a punishment to the PPP and the people who support the PPP, there is no talk of any support to the sugar communities. Will the people in Wales, Rose Hall, Providence also benefit from an electricity subsidy, similar to the one in Linden? There is no discussion about any kind of support to communities for which sugar has been their lives for hundreds of years.
Clearly, there are two dispensations in Guyana. Sugar workers, rice farmers and others who are viewed as supporters of the PPP are not entitled to assistance and any assistance they presently have are “burdens to the taxpayers” to be eliminated as early as possible. The other dispensation is a generous entitlement, a moral responsibility of the taxpayers. Beneficiaries of this entitlement include the Linden electricity subsidy and the hefty salary and perks of the Cabinet, the super salaried sycophants and the generous rewards in the form of contracts to donors and friends. This is reprehensible discrimination and sugar is its poster child.
