Neither PM nor Agri Minister ever engaged sugar workers

Dear Editor,
On December 8, 2017, I wrote a letter to the press about the reluctance of the Alliance For Change (AFC) leaders and Ministers to meaningfully engage the sugar workers.
I stated that, ‘There seems to be reluctance on the part of the Government, especially the Minister of Agriculture and the Prime Minister to meaningfully engage sugar workers at Rose Hall and Skeldon Estates and try to alleviate some of their fears and try to convince them how they will continue to benefit from the privatisation/diversification process. It is unacceptable for GuySuCo and the Department of Public Information to star in video productions and TV programmes. Personal visits and engagement of sugar workers in these communities would have done wonders to appease the sugar workers, but sadly this was above their sky-high status. Leaders must meet and interact with the masses. Sugar workers are more interested where their next meal will come from and not who caused the downfall of GuySuCo!’
However, in a brazen and unabashed attempt by the Leader of the AFC Raphael Trotman to glorify Messrs Holder and Nagamoottoo, he said, “The party will continue to engage sugar workers…since it is concerned about the plight of the sugar workers…and the PM has been making frequent visits to the sugar belt engaging the sugar workers and their families…’ He said that he says this ‘without fear of contradiction.” I do hope that Trotman in the future will verify his statements before going public since not everyone will accept such falsehoods. Neither the PM nor the Agriculture Minister had done this!
The sugar workers at Rose Hall Estate and Skeldon Estate can attest to the fact that neither the Prime Minister not the Agriculture Minister held any consultations or meetings with them. In fact, Nagamootoo ‘graced’ the 104th anniversary of the Rose Hall Martyrs commemoration with a pledge ‘to make sugar workers’ lives better’ since sugar has been his’ singular obsession since entering politics’.
With this deep obsession, one would have thought that Nagamootoo would have been on the ground aggressively engaging the workers in order to appease them. If this was done then maybe the lives of Mohabir and Bissesar from Rose Hall and Wales Estates respectively would not have been wastefully lost. This ‘avatar’ has failed the sugar workers and no amount of empty rhetoric will eradicate the widespread feeling of betrayal now being openly expressed by them.
I wish to express my agreement with one letter writer who correctly stated that the PM only visits a few selected areas with great pomp and ostentation, such as Courtland and Whim and, once in a while, to give egocentric speeches on certain occasions such as openings and graduations but has never indulged in ‘engaging the sugar workers and their families. I think he is too mortified to do that.
Minister Trotman, indeed you stand contradicted!

Yours sincerely,
Haseef Yusuf
RDC Councillor,
Region Six