Region Six Chairman David Armogan is calling on Government to come clean on its plans for the workers attached to the Skeldon and Rose Hall sugar estates, since it has been announced that one estate will be closed and the other sold at the end of the current sugar crop.
“As the clock winds down to the end of the crop, none of the workers know what will become of them in another eight weeks,” the Regional Chairman told this publication in a recent interview.
Agriculture Minister Noel Holder has tabled in Parliament a ‘White Paper’ suggesting that, at the end of the second crop, the Skeldon factory will be up for sale and the Rose Hall factory will be closed.
According to Armogan, “The silence of the Government is allowing persons to guess what the future plans are. I believe the time has come for the Minister to come out definitively with a statement saying, ‘This is what is going to happen to the workforce’. Because, at the end of the day, the focus should be more on the people. What we are not being told at the moment — and there seems to be absolute silence on this — is what will become of the people. Even the present managers of Skeldon and Rose Hall, when you ask them, they don’t have much information,” Armogan said in an interview.
The Regional Chairman expressed fear that conditions similar to what exist at Wales could eventually obtain at Berbice. “I suspect what will happen is that the doors will be closed at the end of the crop, and that will be it; and we will end up in a situation like Wales, where the entire place has been converted into a ghost area.”
Armogan said he does not want that to become of Berbice, which has always had a striving economy. “The Berbice economy has always been doing well, but over the last couple of mornings, business has taken a dive. In fact, businesses have reported that there has been a reduction of almost thirty per cent in sales, as a result of which they have had to send home people.”
While mentioning that more persons would be on the breadline if the estates close their doors, he said the situation is likely to result in an upsurge in criminal activity.
“They talk about tourism, but who would want to come to a country where you have a lot of crime taking place? So l think (that) unless the Government comes out… and they need to do that in a hurry. We need to know what is going to become of the workforce of these two estates; whether Albion is going to take from Rose Hall, and how much they will take. Also, if Blairmont is going to take from Rose Hall, and how much… The Government needs to come out and let us know now what will become of (the workers),” Armogan declared.
He said Government also needs to say what would become of those who would not be able to find employment in either of the two estates, and what would happen at Skeldon when the estate closes.
Armogan said it is time for Government to say what plans they have for the private cane farmers, who would have invested millions of dollars into the industry after being encouraged by Government to invest.
Offering a suggestion to combat the negative impact caused by Guyana’s high cost to produce sugar in a global market which sees a constant decline in world prices for sugar, Armogan explained that planned agriculture in what is needed.
“Not the type of agriculture that is happening now, with rice alone dominating…I am referring to planned agriculture reform, whereby Government will take the lead in terms of telling people what crops to plant, find markets that are profitable, and use places like NAREI [National Agricultural Research and Extension Institute] and some of these technical areas to help the farmers to cultivate new crops.”
He said emphasis should be placed on crops for which markets are available.
“We need systems that will guarantee good drainage and irrigation. Guyana is fortunate to have good lands, and the technical persons will have to focus their attention on improved variety as well as improved output and productivity,” he posited.
This, Armogan said, is needed, because Guyana is competing in a global market.
The Chairman also disclosed that he sees agriculture as one of the savers of the Berbice region; and even if the country were to begin producing oil by 2020, there would still be the need to feed the nation, and the agriculture sector in Region Six has great opportunity to fulfill the mandate of providing food security for not only Berbice, but the entire country and the region.
