Dear Editor,
The PPPC Government’s realistic approach to the sugar industry has created uneasiness among some people, as the administration is moving away from traditional ‘stop gap’ measures (like subsidies) to limit the negative impact of high cost of production by proceeding to “re-imagine” the sugar industry.
Enmore sugar estate would be divested and become an industrial hub. Skeldon sugar estate would be divested with industrial hemp cultivation and processing, aqua-culture, peasant cane farming, soya and corn cultivation (co-generation is not fiscally viable). Rose Hall sugar estate is being rehabilitated for sugar production, and should become operational early next year; while the Wales sugar estate would be converted into an industrial zone under the direction of the Wales Development Authority (WDA), for which funds have already been allocated in the 2022 budget.
What is central to the re-imagining process is the need to avoid heavy subsidies in the future; to ensure that workers do not lose their employment; to rehire those who have been dismissed; and to promote economic revitalisation of the four sugar estates that were closed by the previous PNCR-led Government. When the Government says it would re-open the 3 sugar estates (Enmore, Skeldon, and Rose Hall), it does not necessarily mean that the estates’ communities would be resuscitated based on sugar, even though that would have been the understanding of many people. I believe that the Government conceive the re-opening of the sugar estates as viable economic entities, but not necessarily to be built around sugar cane cultivation, which is of course one option.
The lease of the Sugar Packaging Plant (SPP) facility to Guysons K+B Industries (GKB) for use as a fabrication factory is one step forward in the implementation of the Government’s re-imagining approach. At Enmore, the GKB facility would employ the 30 Packaging Plant employees, and projects a labour force of 500 employees in 5 years’ time.
This project, along with others, would contribute towards the revitalisation of the sugar estate community, which has been hurled into an economic dead zone by the previous Government. The SPP would be relocated at Albion sugar estate, and put into production there. The Agriculture Minister has said SPP workers would be given two months of severance pay.
However rational a plan or strategy may be (and the Government has an opportunity to refine the re-imagining process with inputs from the technical team from Guatemala), it is not likely to sit well with some people. Mr Samuel Gittens wonders why Indian Rights activists who had been critical of the PNCR-led coalition’s closure of sugar estates in 2017 have now gone silent over the Enmore SPP deal. One critic claims, “Ali is now using statistics and figures from another country, Guatemala, to buttress his arguments.” And Mr M Narine asks: “Is Government moving away from sugar and agriculture?”
The Indian Rights group was critical because the coalition Government refused to carry out the recommendations of their own COI, which recommended a 3-year turn-around time for the industry. Worst yet, the coalition Government did not provide the 7,000 dismissed sugar workers with alternative jobs, and failed also to conduct a socio-economic impact study.
The Indian Rights activists are aware that the PPPC Government has been providing relief to workers in the form of alternative jobs; the grant of Gy$250,000 for workers still unemployed (to compensate them for the non-payment of annual productivity bonus and pay rise) as part of the process to build hope for the revitalisation of the sugar estate communities.
Indian Rights activists know that sugar estates have been losing money at an annual average of Gy$8 billion during the period 2011-2020. They support the constructive measures set in motion by the PPPC Government to minimise, and even to eliminate, losses.
While Guyanese must continue to question the viability of projects and policies, their points of view could only gain answering reaction if these are well articulated and grounded in evidence or facts. The decision by the PPPC Government, for example, to lease the sugar packaging plant at Enmore to FKB Industries Inc is based on several critical factors; namely, (i) the run-down state of the sugar factory, including its cannibalisation and its non-operational state for over 6 years; (ii) the abandonment of sugar cane fields for a similar period; (iii) the broken bridges and poor condition of dams; (iv) heavy annual losses (averaging Gy$2.632 billion over the period 2011-2016); (vi) and low levels of productivity (4-5 metric tonnes per hectare, compared with levels of 10.7 metric tonnes per hectare in Guatemala).
These are powerful negative forces that should not be allowed to continue. The Government has therefore decided that divestment which protects jobs and increases employment level would also lead to the revitalisation of the Enmore sugar estate community. The same situation applies to Skeldon sugar estate.
Sincerely,
Dr Tara Singh
