Government is now spending in excess of $2B to maintain Drainage and Irrigation structures on the East Coast and East Berbice as a result of the closure of the four sugar estates.
A section of the crowd at the Canje, Berbice meeting on Tuesday evening
This figure was disclosed by Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo on Tuesday while addressing a public meeting in East Canje, Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne). Hundreds of sugar workers in the community who lost their jobs as a result of the closure of the Rose Hall Estate – one of four estates closed – were in attendance at the meeting.
Jagdeo told the gathering that the Drainage and Irrigation system along the East Coast and many other villages were being maintained by the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo).
However, with the closure of the estates on the West Bank Demerara, East Coast Demerara, East Canje and Corentyne, Government now spends more than $2B to maintain the structures.
Under the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) Administration, Government was spending close to $5B annually to subsidise the sugar industry after Guyana lost is a preferential deal with the European Union.
“Sugar was maintaining all those drainage and irrigation canals and so because the estates are closed all of the canals are clogged up and the villages are flooding. If you take away the sugar workers contribution in taxes and to the National Insurance Scheme and too many other places you would see that it would have been better to keep sugar open and keep 11,000 people working rather than the transitional subsidy,” Jagdeo said.
Vindictive act
He added that the closure of the sugar estates was a vindictive act by the coalition government.
“They wanted sugar workers to migrate or to leave the country in order to change the demographics. That is what the motivation was.”
However, Jagdeo told the community that the severed workers need not to worry anymore because when the PPP returns to power, they will return to work.
“Whatever it costs, we are reopening these estates, we are going to reopen them,” he assured sugar workers, their families and others, who have been adversely affected by the closures.
“I could imagine how a father and a mother feels when they have a hard time feeding their children to school. Many of you now have a hard time doing so. I wanted everyone in Canje to know that whatever happened we will keep our promise because we know and we felt the pain and have seen the suffering. So, this is payback time for all suffering. This payback time for the broken promises…”
In 2016, the Government announced the closure of the first sugar estate located at Wales on the West Bank of Demerara (WBD).
The move was made despite the fact that Government spent millions of dollars to hold a Commission of Inquiry (CoI) which recommended that there be no closure of the sugar estates.
Estates at Enmore, Skeldon and Rose Hall were subsequently shut down – triggering widespread controversy.
More than 10,000 persons have been directly and indirectly affected by the closure of these estates.
Nearly 5000 workers from Enmore, Rose Hall and Skeldon were dismissed in late 2017, and over 1000 were dismissed from Wales in the previous year.
Cottage industries that were once thriving in some of the communities in close proximity to the estates have since died as spending power has been significantly diminished among the local populace.
Retrenched workers, most of whom were breadwinners of their families, are still struggling to find a steady job.
Despite calls by stakeholders, the Government had refused to conduct a socioeconomic study before closing the estates.
The rippling effects of the closure of the sugar estates can be seen in those communities, especially in the commercial districts where activities have practically been ground to a halt.
Market areas which were once bustling are now almost isolated.
In some cases, families face a daily struggle in finding a way to send their children to school.
