Rescuing and revitalising the sugar industry

Dear Editor,
The Recommendations of the APNU/AFC Government-appointed Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the Sugar Industry, 2015, under the Chairmanship of Mr Virbert Parvatan, provided the framework to rescue and revitalise the sugar industry to profitability in three years.
There are several workable recommendations designed to save the industry and maintain higher levels of sugar production through reorganisation, improved agricultural husbandry, and cost cutting measures, without retrenchment of workers.
The Commission made no recommendation to contract the sugar industry before three years, to allow reasonable time for Government, GuySuCo, the political parties in the National Assembly and all stakeholders to find viable solutions to save the industry, jobs, surrounding communities of sugar estates, concentration on sugar production, significant foreign currency earnings for the national treasury.
Recommendation 4 of the Commission states “… the COI does not recommend the closure of any Estate at this time.”
The PNC-led coalition Government must reconsider its decision to downsize the sugar industry. There is widespread belief and also strong perception that the Government’s decisions on the sugar industry are politically and racially motivated in a vindictive and spiteful manner, designed to attack the base of the PPP support by dismissing over 5,000 workers and thereby causing untold sufferings to large sections of the communities around the sugar estates.
It would be wise for the APNU/AFC Government to reconsider its decision to downsize the sugar industry, save jobs and communities, and earn more needed foreign currency for national development. This will no doubt regain for this Government some credibility and trust which it has lost, along also with widespread belief of manifest racial and political discrimination in employment and public policies.

Yours faithfully,
Joshua Singh