As I write this column, I am outraged over the manner in which the People’s National Congress-led A Partnership for National Unity and Alliance For Change coalition Government has treated our country’s hardworking sugar workers since coming to office in May 2015.
These are the very same workers who for decades have laboured in the cane fields and various parts of Guyana’s many sugar estates to keep this country afloat, many times preventing it from going under. These workers are not criminals but they are being treated in that manner. Sugar workers, like any other category of workers, are law abiding citizens who pay their taxes and make meaningful contributions to the overall development of their communities and the wider society in which they live. They deserve far more respect than the coalition Government is according them, and I firmly believe that the President and his entire Cabinet owe them an unreserved apology.
I find it very hard to accept the arguments put forward by the coalition Government for its decision to fire thousands of workers just before Christmas 2016 without a detailed plan as to the payment of those workers and the concomitant consequence’s that will flow from that decision.
If the David Granger Government said it could no longer afford to give the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) billions of dollars as a bail out because of the financial strain placed on the public purse, then it must explain its actions in many other sectors and areas. Why must taxpayers carry the burden of paying for the salary increases for “fat cats” in the Government? Why must we pay for Minister’s to live in luxury and travel all across the world unnecessarily? Why must the entire country pay for Linden to have subsidised electricity yearly but we cannot pay to ensure that thousands of poor and ordinary workers keep their jobs and bread on their table. What is good for the goose must be good for the gander.
The fact that the Government has not put proper arrangements in place to pay those workers who have been dismissed is also very alarming and shameful. If you terminate their services or have their services retrenched, pay them right there and then. In any other part of the world, this Government would have been hauled before the courts. Not paying the workers ahead of Christmas and early in the year is insensitive and heartless. It exposes the crassness of the decision and the fact that there was no plan in the first place.
Because of the coalition Government’s decision to close estates, fire thousands of workers who are mostly East Indian and withhold their payments, communities along the coastland which were dependent on the sugar industry economically will be decimated financially. The spin-off impact will see poorer families and a massive decline in their disposable income or spending ability. No small loan projects and skills training exercise can undo the damage that will be done. And no amount of public relations stunts and propaganda can change the mindset of those who have been wronged by this Government.
The truth is, these workers feel because they voted for the Opposition People’s Progressive Party (PPP), they are being victimised. They feel worse than the communities of Agricola and Buxton which have historically complained about being discriminated against by the PPP while it was in office.
This decision marks a massive setback for race relations in this country and exposes the cracks in the Government’s social cohesion policy. It will also reduce any gains this Government hoped to foster in the area of building ethnic trust. Maybe if it was done by the PPP, the reaction and perceptions might have been different but it was done by a coalition Government that is dominated by a particular ethnic group. That alone will be the subject of much discourse at the bottom houses in sugar producing areas and those who are committed to sowing seeds of racial discord and disharmony, will have a field day even if the Government did not even premise its decision on race but politics and economics.
The decision to close estates should have benefited from a series of televised public consultations and the Commission of Inquiry report on the state of the industry should have been the subject of national debates, both at the levels of the Regional Democratic Councils in various sugar producing regions for feedback and the National Assembly.
The decision to downsize the industry and restructure it in this matter while at the same time firing so many people does not make economic sense at a time when the national economy is in pre-recession mode and unable to attract any new foreign direct investments.
The Government with its penny wise and pound foolish approach has not even rolled out a robust programme aimed at retraining a large portion of those employees to make them more marketable so that they can venture outside of the industry and find jobs.
I strongly feel that if GuySuCo was bleeding this country’s coffers badly over the years, then this Government should have taken a top down approach. It should have changed its management because that is where the problem lies. Many of them do not understand how to run companies with the dynamics that GuySuCo has efficiently and effectively. Why do you think there is a lot of interest from private companies in the estates, the assets and there lands?
Sugar workers must use their ballots as their sole weapon against this coalition Government in 2020; after all, that is all they can do when faced with an Administration beset by arrogance, political immaturity and indifference.
