Dear Editor,
On September 5, 2023, the remorseless AFC Leader Khemraj Ramjattan again poured venom down the throats of the workers re-employed by the Rose Hall Estate; the people who were devastated economically and socially by the heartless and uncaring Coalition Government when they shuttered the Estate and sent the thousands down the road to poverty and willful destruction.
The workers were unceremoniously kicked out, with no bread in sight. In utter despair, they dejectedly walked into an unknown, bleak, dark and desolate future that engulfed them. Thousands of families were ripped apart in turmoil and chaos as the domino effect forced the closure of many economic activities which depended on the income of the sugar workers, who were then reduced to mendicants while those in the uncaring Coalition raped and emptied the Treasury and lived like royalty.
Can anyone imagine what it is like to lose your only livelihood with no alternative source of income? Why would a Government be hell-bent on dismissing thousands of workers en masse? Was it vengeance, to spite the PPP? Was it to destroy the PPP’s perceived support base?
It should be recalled that the Rose Hall Estate produced 27,000 tons of sugar in 2016, it was the recipient of the Medal of Service in 1978 for exceptional performance, and was among the high-flying estates in GuySuCo. The financial records will bear testimony that, from 2015, when the Coalition assumed office, the Estate was systematically deprived of capital investments, and even the capital allocation in 2016 was left unused funds were simply not available.
The devious plan to close began as soon as the Coalition held the reins of power, despite lofty election campaign promises made to sugar workers in 2020. Everyone could still vividly recall the 20% wage increase and the ‘no closure promise’ they made. In fact, the COI they commissioned recommended no closure, and envisioned viability by 2025. Now it can be seen that if the Coalition was still in Government, as warned by the PPP on the 2020 campaign trail, all the Estates would have been closed by 2025.
Granger and Nagamootoo’s empty rhetoric: that ‘sugar was too big to fail’, was just to ‘sugarcoat’ what was imminent. Deceit and lies were the order of the day.
Today, the AFC’s visionless leader still maintains that ‘the reopening of the Rose Hall Estate will take the sector and the country into a black hole’.
When they shuttered the four estates, I would assume that no ‘black hole’ was created. I will submit that the ‘black hole’ was created as soon as the Coalition assumed office. They literally emptied the Treasury during their term in office and pauperized the Guyanese masses. In GuySuCo, hundreds of billions in standing canes and fixed assets were left to rot and decay after the heist of billions in assets, which until today bears no accountability can be ascertained, compliments of the SPU – again, a creation by the Coalition.
Assets just dissipated in thin air. Mandrake the Magician would pale in comparison. Imagine closing four Estates after ‘spending’ $49 billion in ‘subsidies’ with nothing to show.
Today, the Opposition Coalition wants to know the reopening cost of the Rose Hall Estate, but they have the answer at their disposal: just calculate the cost of the panoramic destruction of the entity – the standing canes, the cane lands converted to forests, the clogged waterways, the hundreds of rotten punts, the falling bridges, revetment, the many building (fertilizer bonds, chemical bonds, the stores, administrative buildings, staff houses, guest house, staff club, etc.), the entire factory structure, the factory machinery and equipment, the entire field machinery and equipment, and the list goes on. All of these, including the social and economic cost of labour, are just collateral damage to the Coalition.
There are photographs and videos that bear evidence of the complete annihilation of the Rose Hall Estate. This will be the same condition in all the closed Estates. This insensitive and callous act should be investigated and documented, since untold suffering was meted out to thousands of people. This was a deliberate criminal act, and yet the ones accountable can now stand and question the expenditure of paltry sums in comparison to what they destroyed and siphoned off.
They can now denigrate the Herculean efforts by the PPP/C Government to reopen the Estate. A criminal act was committed on the people for no justifiable reason. The APNU and AFC should applaud this Government for correcting their wrongs.
Today history is created at Rose Hall Estate, when over 160 persons employed as porters and cleaners were trained and transformed into skilled artisans (operators, welders, fitters, electricians), and together with those re-employed, undertook what was mission impossible to rehabilitate the factory. Today, the success of the factory and the field bears testimony to the tenacity of the GuySuCo Team dedicated and committed to the reopening, for which failure was not an option.
The APNU and AFC postulated that the reopening would fail wrong bet. The Estate’s Management Team headed by Mr Goberdhan as the Estate’s Manager achieved the success that a handful of ‘negaholics’ had decried and rallied against. The entire rebuilding process was systematically planned and executed by the hard-working CEO and his industrious Head Office Team.
Mr Sasenarine Singh became personally connected with the reopening process, and it was no surprise when calls were made to managers and directions given in the dead of the night.
The PPP/C Government has delivered once again on its 2020 campaign promises, and the workers and the people of Region 6 have expressed their heartfelt gratitude to the Government for realizing this promise. The indefatigable Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Zulfikar Mustapha, must be congratulated for ensuring the timely delivery of this promise, as he kept his focus on the objective to reopen the Estate. He made it pellucid that if making people’s lives better is ‘pumping money down a dark hole’, then it is money well spent, since the benefits by far outweigh the costs. This Minister is the true Champion of the sugar workers, not the ‘candle lighter’.
Yours sincerely,
Haseef Yusuf
