And then there was none…

…sugar estates or Indians?
Fans of Agatha Christie’s mysteries, would remember the best-seller, “And then there was none”. She was referring to the old, ditty “Ten little Indians” – originally, “Ten Little “N” word” but deemed “insensitive”! In the mystery, 10 persons on a desert island are killed one after the other – until finally, “there was none”.
Well, the Government finally issued its long-promised “White Paper” on its plans for sugar and – in addition to not being “white” or much of a “paper” (four pages makes a “paper”??) – contained absolutely no surprises. As the then Leader of the PNC David Granger had said – sugar will soon be “none”! But they certainly made a song and dance about starting out with 238 plantations in 1829 and dwindling all the time to the present six – which will be three by the end of the year.
Made it seem as if the whittling away of plantations was the result of some cosmic force that’s pretty much irresistible!! Nobody to blame – especially the present Government and their hired guns like Errol Hanoman, CEO and Clive Thomas, Chairman of GuySuCo!! But like your Eyewitness has been stressing – whenever anyone tries to justify something with numbers, look carefully and you’ll discover why folks talk wryly about “lies, damned lies and statistics”.
Sure, there were 100 less plantations in 1890 than in 1829, but could the government explain why the production of sugar had actually tripled by then from 25,000 tons to 75,000 tons?? And that the 18 sugar estates in 1967 produced over 350,000 tons?? The Government should admit that just like in certain areas of human endeavour, size isn’t everything. In sugar, the number of factories or estates isn’t everything. It’s how you use what you got to deliver the most sweetness (sugar) for the buck.
The Government’s entire argument for closing the plantations is a non-sequitur. They first of all rejected the advice of their CoI to make some cash injections to make the estates viable and THEN put them on the block for privatisation. Doesn’t THAT make sense?? They keep harping on labour costs – but while they would’ve been paying those workers in pieces of paper they print and call “dollars”, the sugar exported at whatever prices would’ve brought in hard foreign currency!
Then they say they have a plan for the workers? Ha!! Leasing land to workers to plant god-knows-what crop’s a PLAN??
That’s dooming them to producing subsistence crops which doomed African Guyanese after slavery. And the descendants of Indentured Indians?? Soon they will be none.

…defending the Judiciary
After an interminable wait – during which a lot of folks were holding their breaths – in the faceoff between the Executive and the Judiciary over AG Basil Williams’ boorishness, the Judiciary blinked. It’s a day that’ll go down in infamy when Justice Franklin Holder recused himself from sitting on the bench to hear the plea for Justice from Carvil Duncan against Executive overreach.
Justice Holder’s succumbing to Executive bullyism goes against centuries of tradition of the Judiciary struggling to maintain the rule of law against an always threatening Executive. In fact, it was the dismissal of Edward Coke, the Chief Justice of England by Charles I – for suggesting the King was subject to the rule of law, rather than the other way round, which enshrined the independence of the Judiciary from Executive control.
Rather than falling on his sword as Justice Holder did, Coke wrote the “Institutes of Laws” and later “The Petition of Right” which Parliament used to oppose and eventually execute the King.
We hope the new Justice will hold the line till the execution of 2020.

…on Pharma contract
During Budget Debate 2016, Minister Cummings said NEW GPC was “out” and “a fair and open bidding process for all suppliers” was initiated.
So how does NEW GPC owe $300 million when they got no contract??