Ramjattan backpedals on decision to keep sugar industry alive

The future of the sugar industry and GuySuCo was a crucial, monumental issue in the 2015 Regional and General Elections, but it is now on the back burner.

Consistently in 2013 and 2014, the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance for Change (APNU/AFC) denied they had any plan to close the sugar estates.
On their campaign trail in 2015, the incumbent Government promised that no sugar estate would be closed and that sugar workers would enjoy a 20 per cent annual increase and better benefits under an APNU/AFC Government.
In addition, they promised that under their tenure, sugar would see even more glorious years ahead.
During a rally in 2015, Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan told those gathered that “As part of taking care of the people, we have to ensure that certain industries that are the foundation of this economy, Guyanese economy, are looked after and in Berbice here they are two major ones, the sugar industry, and the rice industry and I want to tell you that the propaganda that you are hearing the APNU/AFC coalition is going to ground both industries to the dirt is all lies! We are not going to in any way close the sugar industry”.

While APNU/AFC wildly uses financial feasibility as the excuse to close sugar, former President Bharrat Jagdeo and the People’s Progressive Party/Civic contended that there are compelling socio-economic reasons for keeping sugar.
He pointed out that sugar is the largest single employer in Guyana, after the public service. Sugar provides the bulk of the drainage and irrigation in Regions Three, Four, Five and Six.
Sugar plays a critical role in the viability of the National Insurance Scheme and contributes considerably to the Government’s income tax receipt, which is a significant foreign currency earner.
Sugar also creates a whole village economy that falls like dominoes when sugar is not working. See what has taken place in Wales, Patentia, West Bank Demerara, Canje, Enmore and La Bonne Intention (LBI).
The vendors in the community markets in these areas, taxi drivers, grocery shop owners, tailors and seamstresses, jewellers and barbers and hairdressers have seen their livelihoods gone up in smokes.
The closure of the four sugar estates at Rose Hall-Canje, Skeldon (both in Berbice), East Demerara (Enmore to Ogle) and Wales (West Bank Demerara) tossed close to 7500 workers into a financial crisis.
In addition, that same rally in 2015, Ramjattan signalled his intention of the sugar and rice industry by noting that: “We intend, my brothers and sisters, to make that industry [sugar] profitable again, we have to make it profitable because it is that creates so much employment not directly but also indirectly for so many people across this country,” Ramjattan cited.
Nevertheless, despite all the sugarcoated talks and speeches on keeping the sugar industry alive, Ramjattan has another story to tell.
“We want to wane the next generation away from cane cutting, a place where PPP wants to put them back.” Those were the words of Ramjattan at the APNU/AFC campaign launch on Friday at D’Urban Park.
2019’s, 92,246 tonnes of sugar were sold in the local, regional and international markets compared to 110,273 under the PPP Administration.
In May of 2019, the coalition Government was preparing to sell off huge swathes of land owned by the GuySuCo as part of moves to sell off the several loss-making estates.
This was being executed even as the Administration prepared to revive interest in the ‘for sale’ assets by local and foreign investors.
The downsizing of the sugar industry has been fiercely resisted by the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU), the parliamentary Opposition and a number of other agencies.
The operations of the La Bonne Intention Estate were amalgamated with those of the Enmore Estate; those at Wales were amalgamated with Uitvlugt and there are plans to privatise Skeldon. But the closure of the estates and the sacking of workers are having an effect on the economy.