Dear Editor,
The word ‘panoramic’ is an adjective which means ‘a wide view surrounding the observer, presenting all the different aspects or stages of a particular subject, event, etc.’ In other words, it is a view which presents itself as far as the eyes of the observer could see.
A veteran GuySuCo Estate Manager described the state of the entity in just two words, ‘panoramic destruction’. This widespread destruction is the heartbreaking story of all the closed estates, but I will just focus on Rose Hall, since it was at this location that the Alliance for Change carried out its campaign of lies and deceit to garner the support of the sugar workers.
It is here also that the destruction of the Coalition began in December 2018. Indeed, as I looked around, there was total destruction all around me, and as I ventured into the administrative and other buildings, the factory and the cultivation, it was evident that this was the saddest experience of my entire life. There was complete annihilation.
In the past, I had written about the devastating effects on the lives and livelihood of the sugar workers and their families, and the domino effect on the surrounding communities. I had written on the social and economic costs and the effect on our balance of payments; but this deliberate, inconsiderate, and wanton demolition of the estates’ assets speaks volumes, not only of the vindictive nature of the Coalition, but of the gross disdain for sound policies of economic and social development of our country.
How can a Government just abruptly close down the estates and allow billions in assets to just decay and rot?
The former Finance Minister, Winston Jordan, had said that 3 Estates would be reopened, since, “we cannot keep them closed and mothballed, because when buyers come, they would probably not be as impressed as if they were working”.
Disappointingly, these estates were never brought back into operation, and the corrupt Coalition behemoths devoured everything. At Rose Hall Estate, machinery and equipment were ‘sold’ to cronies and families for mere peanuts.
It was evident that the closed estates were never meant to be reopened, neither were they intended to be ‘mothballed’. Moreover, Harmon had said, “There is work to be done, and therefore you cannot just bring something to an end and you don’t have something to take it up…” This sounds more like a riddle, and the Estate was indeed closed in December 2017. Harmon had deceitfully promised that closure would be in 2018. This is not surprising, since the Coalition never kept any of their promises, they always speak with forked tongues, and their duplicitous nature can be regarded as inherently legendary.
Since 2017, the factory had deteriorated rapidly; and now, nearly three years after, the rehabilitation process would cost millions. This cost could have been avoided if the factory was kept operational as Jordan had promised. This same situation prevails around the vicinity of the factory, where hundreds of punts were ‘drowned’ in mud and vegetation, some in dire need of repairs while others were in varying degrees of deterioration. But as one leaves the vicinity of the factory and ventures into the cultivation, this is where the saddest part of the story unfolds.
The fields are overrun with vegetation, and canes stretch in all directions; and it is this vast acreage which now needs to be put to ‘sleep’, a euphemistic way of saying that these canes must be destroyed so that tillage and cultivation can begin. This means that over 6,500 hectares of canes must be literally destroyed.
The value of this is a staggering $1.5 billion as it is. The revenue lost over the three-year period is estimated at a whopping $5 billion. In addition, the cost of tillage would entail millions. Therefore, the closure of these estates not only presented a humongous loss of revenue, but entailed millions in avoidable costs.
The Coalition deliberately ‘cut their nose to spite their faces’. They were so bent on being out for vengeance that they destroyed not only the sugar workers and the estates, but they themselves in the process. The ‘yes’ vote by Charrandas Persaud, who is from this Rose Hall Estate community, bears living testimony!
Today, Rose Hall Estate is being restarted, as promised by the PPP/C, and the visible signs of relief can be seen on not only the faces of workers re-employed, but on the residents in the outlying communities. The Estate’s Management has been working assiduously to salvage the fields, and the preparatory works are ongoing at an extremely rapid pace in other areas as well. The PPP/C’s fulfilment of its promise to reopen the estates is a great blessing to this nation, and has once again restored confidence to the people.
However, it boggles the mind to fathom why the Coalition’s Ramjattan felt that a subsidy of $5 billion per annum for the entire sugar industry was throwing money down a “dark hole”, when he cannot see that his government actually squandered $170 billion just from January to July this year alone. The self-appointed ‘champion’ of the sugar workers had said in 2017 that the sugar industry had become ‘a millstone around the necks of Guyanese’, and deemed the closure as the ‘formula, the mechanism for the survival of sugar in Guyana’.
He had also remarked that the treasury is being ‘raped’ to support sugar, and at Whim he barefacedly told the APNU/AFC supporters that the closed estates were ‘absolutely useless’. He never saw the ‘rape’ of the Treasury which took place under the useless Coalition when they, for 5 years, became that ‘millstone’ he had alluded to.
In conclusion, the PPP/C had pledged in 2015 to invest $20 billion in the sugar industry to keep it alive, yet the Coalition squandered over $40 billion in GuySuCo, and closed four estates, resulting in rapidly declining production and profitability. Where the Coalition ‘pumped’ that humongous sum is anyone’s guess. What was frittered away by mismanagement and incompetence was equalled by blatant thievery.
Today, the PPP/C has the unenviable task of rebuilding what the Coalition has wilfully destroyed. It would have been much easier to work on expanding the closed estates, rather than rebuilding them, but the PPP/C has the track record of successfully rebuilding an entire country, much less the closed estates.
I am confident that, given the competent leadership of both the Agriculture sector and GuySuCo, within the next two years, GuySuCo will once again be on the path to profitability. Sugar will definitely be sweet again.
Yours sincerely,
Haseef Yusuf
