Dismissed sugar workers want severance, not sports bar – ex employees

GuySuCo-SPU clash

By Shemuel Fanfair

Less than two weeks after the appointment of its new Chairman, the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) and the Special Purpose Unit (SPU) are battling over the conversion of the La Bonne Intention estate staff club into a sports bar, called the “Estate Lounge”. However, this move has drawn GuySuCo’s ire as terminated sugar workers feel resources should allocated to fund their severance payment rather than establishing a sports bar. The SPU secured a $30 billion bond for its divestments initiatives.
However, dismissed Enmore sugar worker Rampersaud Prashad told Guyana Times that since 2017, he was supposed to be paid all of his severance. Nevertheless, he only received half that amount when Government paid several workers half of their severance in early 2018.
“The 30 billion dollars what they get, they putting in sports bar [but] things real tight. I aint think they should ah do that; they should come out and give people them money,” Prashad observed.
He indicated his eagerness to know the exact cost of the SPU’s overhaul of the staff club. Speaking on his current plight, the former Enmore worker stressed that he is barely able to make ends meet as it has been difficult for him to secure high-paying employment.
“Nothing and deh but I trying to maintain my daughter and my son,” he said.
“They could have given us we severance. Nobody thinking about East Demerara workers. Them in Wales and Berbice get [food] hampers but we never get none. After we get redundant, we don’t have organiser to protest,” the man lamented.
Part-time sugar worker, Alex Paul Singh, who is one of the workers fighting for severance pay at Wales told Guyana Times that he is finding it difficult to care for his youngest daughter, 14, who is still in school.
“The money what they take to spruce up LBI, Enmore, Rose Hall and Skeldon is fraud because all the estates was in the process of grinding. All the cane is there, NICIL (National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited) doesn’t have to spend money to get any canes,” the 57-year-old man stressed.
He too feels that money currently being expended by NICIL’s SPU should have been directed at paying GuySuCo’s severed employees. He told this publication that he has been finding it difficult to get work outside of his part-time employment as a ‘Service Hand’ attached to the divested Wales entity.
“I hustling with all kind of work; lil mason work for a two-day. I aint getting no permanent work,” he stressed.
Former Skeldon worker in the fertiliser department, Naskisha Best is a mother of three school aged-children. She has been waiting on her severance pay and said she applied for a permanent job since June and has not gotten through as yet. She however told Guyana Times that from her knowledge, the SPU-managed entities have been employing fewer women and are opting to take on more men.
“They said that they mostly taking on cane cutters,” Best explained.
The establishment of the revamped sports bar comes amid protests from many workers who are owed severance payment after being terminated in late 2017. The GuySuCo is however clashing with the SPU which is the successive owner of divested sugar estates: Wales, Skeldon, Rose Hall, and the merged East Demerara Estate where thousands of workers lost their jobs as the industry downsized.
Tasked with divestment by NICIL, the SPU is attempting to make the entities more attractive to investors, with Government having secured a $30 million bond to this end, with $17 billion made available under the first tranche over two months ago.
According to information surfacing on Friday, the GuySuCo-SPU clash was in full effect when the Sugar Corporation blocked what was set to be the official launching of the “Estate Lounge”. SPU reportedly transformed GuySuCo’s staff club into a lounge but the sugar entity’s notice on Fr

iday said that the launch was postponed until further notice.

“Air-conditioned rum shop”
People’s Progressive Party (PPP) Member of Parliament Anil Nandlall on Saturday berated the Government entity for its use of the $30 billion bond that was secured from Republic Bank. The former Attorney General deemed the situation a disconcerting one, given that the bond is, perhaps, the largest single domestic burrowing in Guyana’s history.
He reasoned that the $17 billion which was already disbursed is lying “idle” in a NICIL bank account attracting interest at a rate of millions of dollars per month.
He deemed the Estate Lounge a relaxation spot for “the big boys to enjoy their liquid and other entertainment”.
“So money can be found to build a well-appointed, air-conditioned rum shop for the elitists to wine and dine but monies cannot be found to pay the 7000 workers, whose family has been placed on the breadline, their severance pay to which they are lawfully entitled. And this recreational joint is built in the estate’s compound within the clear sight of the workers and their suffering families who wonder daily from where the next meal will come. This must be one of the most inconsiderate, insensitive and callous governments ever,” the PPP executive outlined.
Former sugar workers in Berbice have recently increased demonstrations calling for their severance pay. Meanwhile, many of their colleagues at Wales have been waiting for the outcome of an ongoing court case since early 2017. Justice Sandil Kissoon is said to be hearing the matter in the High Court. These workers demanded severance since they refused to take up work at the Uitvlugt Estate, which is 22 miles away from their original place of employment.