The Alliance For Change (AFC) has admitted to being fully aware that $500 million was budgeted for severance payments for sugar workers in 2018 when $5 billion was needed to pay all workers in full.
In an attempt to justify the reason behind this, Agriculture Minister Noel Holder said paying the entire severance amount was impossible, as it was too difficult to find all the monies at once.
Agriculture Minister Noel Holder
“Finding the $4.5 billion in severance is a difficult thing to do and serious decisions had to be made with regards to what other areas of the economy will be denied funding to do this,” he said Monday at an AFC press conference.
Holder resorted to his old argument that the problem in the sugar industry started since the last Government was in office and only continued to grow as time went by.
He said the coalition was shocked to find out upon assuming office that the bailout for sugar was to the tune of billions of dollars, something it was not expecting.
AFC Leader Raphael Trotman also noted that the matter regarding severance pay for workers was discussed at length for several months before a final decision was made.
“This matter has been engaging Cabinet’s attention for months and it’s not that we are unaware that severance had to be paid. We were quite aware,” he asserted.
According to the party leader, the AFC was aware that only $500 million was set aside for severance.
Trotman recalled that Finance Minister Winston Jordan had indicated to Cabinet last year that they would have to submit a supplementary paper to be able to pay the full severance.
“So it’s not that we were unaware or unmindful…There were a number of imperatives which came out during 2017 that we were not aware of and that we had to face,” the Minister added.
He continued, “So it’s not that we were not prepared to find more; we knew we had to pay severance, but it’s just where it’s going to come from that we need to get a better understanding.”
Trotman reminded that the AFC was the first to call on Government to pay severance to workers when it issued a strongly-worded statement in December 2017 to this effect.
“We are very concerned as are all Guyanese …and I can say to you that…in Cabinet, we have made some very strong recommendations supporting the proposals that have come, the most recent being, of course, that we must find monies to pay severance and that was high on the AFC’s agenda last year.”
He said his party would continue to push to ensure that sugar workers were treated humanely, fairly and according to the laws of Guyana as it related to the Collective Bargaining Agreement.
“It is unfortunate that GuySuCo (Guyana Sugar Corporation) has been run down over the years; not starting in two years, not starting in five but for a long time, over a decade and it should have been that company that should have been paying the severance,” Trotman further stated.
President David Granger had announced that ministerial budgets would be slashed to ensure that sugar workers receive part of their severance pay this month-end and the remainder in mid-2018.
“The Government is committed to the welfare of sugar workers and their families. It has…embarked on an extensive review of expenditure in every sector to the extent of reducing ministerial budgets in order to find funds to enable sugar workers to receive their severance pay,” the President said.
The announcement was met with severe criticism. Guyana General and Agricultural Workers Union (GAWU) President Komal Chand said that the Government’s move was in direct breach of the labour laws as the workers were entitled to their payment as soon as they were made redundant.
“The law requires you to do that; you are violating the law by not paying the severance pay at the end of the one month’s notice so you have completed an illegal act,” the GAWU President said.
The Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC) said President Granger’s commitment to paying affected sugar workers 50 per cent of their severance was “not good enough”, noting that addressing the workers’ concerns was not a priority of the Administration.
The GTUC said the fact that no budgetary allocation was made to cover the severance payments of the affected was indicative of no premium being placed on the concerns of the workers. As such, the GTUC sees this as a worrying sign and intensification of the Government’s attacks on workers’ rights, across the board.
Some 4000 sugar workers from Enmore, Rose Hall and Skeldon were dismissed from their jobs by December 29, 2017.
