Much has been said, and will continue to be articulated as it relates to sugar and its industry, simply because of the economic and social ramifications that would accrue should Government and the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) go the intended route of ‘downsizing’ the sugar industry.
The incumbent Administration, through its Ministers, has adumbrated at length in the National Assembly and elsewhere the hemorrhaging that the ailing industry is costing the national coffers ( billion- billion annually), and has used that as its main argument to downsize the industry, since it does not know how else to proceed, even though the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) that was launched into the industry laid out a clear direction that didn’t recommend the closing of estates but privatisation after three years.
With the Wales Estate closed (swelling the ranks of the unemployed by thousands), that community has already begun to show signs of economic distress and fatigue – a situation we are sure would obtain in other communities where estates are earmarked for closure.
The Opposition has long argued that the downsizing of sugar – a prelude to closing the industry – would tangibly affect well over 80,000 persons, devastating the surrounding villages and communities that rely on the industry for survival and economic growth.
Government expectedly brushed aside the inputs emanating from the Opposition as being political, and, in its defence, said that the closure of the estates would see the lands being divested to farmers for the proliferation of other crops, such as rice, among others, which it said would fill the gap.
Whether those touted diversification mechanisms would yield the same level of income generation for the thousands now jobless in Wales is yet to be determined.
Moreover, it was only recently that the Private Sector Commission (PSC), among other stakeholders, articulated the same concerns of the Opposition, and even outlined the consequences of what would unfold with Government’s plans for the industry.
Citing the 2015 audit of GuySuCo’s financial statements, the PSC disclosed that more than billion would be removed from private employment income should Government proceed with the closure of estates.
“This, in turn, would have a direct negative effect on consumer spending in the communities which, directly or indirectly, depend upon income from sugar. Such a decline in consumer spending would also have a diminishing impact upon all commerce, with concomitant negative spin-off effects on the economy as a whole,” the PSC posited.
We expected that with the facts being presented before it by numerous stakeholders calling for the sugar industry to be sustained, Government would have reconsidered its current disposition and realign its financial strategies to ensure the survival and profitability of the industry.
Even now, as the Government, against the wishes of the majority, scuttles to rid itself of an entity it deems “a bottomless pit”, other countries, such as neighbouring Brazil, have realised and embraced the tremendous potential that sugar has to offer in the form of energy.
Brazil’s success in converting sugar to ethanol, which is then blended with imported fuel to significantly lower its fuel import bill while simultaneously lowering its carbon footprint, is legendary.
The People’s Progressive Party/Civic, before it was ousted from power, had started diversifying sugar along this route by investing together with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in an million bio-ethanol demonstration plant that converts a sugar by-product – “blackstrap” molasses into ethanol. The plant has seemingly been abandoned by this Administration.
With all its talk of going green, wouldn’t have continuing along the route of ethanol diversification been one of the most feasible ways for this Government to proceed?
It would’ve ensured that sugarcane production is maintained, if not increased; as opposed to what is obtaining now, where the production target for sugar is slipping to the point where there might be a shortage of sugar on the local market. One of the answers to saving sugar lies in the production of ethanol, since it would address manufacturing and employment deficits while allowing for the estates and the industry to remain operational. This, in turn, would boost consumer spending. In regard to the future of the sugar industry, Guyana should never be in a position where all our eggs are in one basket, which it seems is the intent with the incumbent Administration and oil.
