Dear Editor,
The sugar industry continues to be one of the most important industries in the Guyana. It supports more than 15,000 jobs and $22 billion in taxable compensation to workers. The sugar industry also attracts direct investment valued at close to $3 billion directly and more than $5 billion indirectly. This is approximately four per cent of all direct investment in Guyana; more investments than what the “permanently travelling to conferences” CEO of GO-Invest has developed in all his work life.
So what we see Clive Thomas doing today by clandestinely making decisions that continue to accelerate the breaking up of the Guyana Sugar Corporation is nothing but anti-national and anti-patriotic. His actions continue to spread misery in the industry and will continue to deny Guyana economic activity. But strangely enough, there are tons of academic literature from the 1970’s proving that it is this same Thomas who wrote widely on the relevance of the sugar industry, its usefulness to Guyana, how much the sugar industry contributed to the Guyanese economy by way of the sugar levy and how it has paid its dues and subsidising other industries. So why this fip-flop from Thomas? Why this determined attempt to destroy the sugar industry by Thomas? Is he suffering from a serous state of geriatric amnesia or dementia?
But this stubborn attempt to defund the industry and bring greater poverty to the rural folks of Berbice and Demerara will backfire on Thomas and his new political masters in the People’s National Congress (PNC). This group is now dogmatically supported by their chief apologist who has now added his voice to the oppressive dialogue. Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo told the media that “Bailing out sugar is like raiding the Treasury”. Is that so?
But this same Nagamootoo was the one who wrote extensively in the Mirror newspaper in the 1980’s on how the PNC was attempting to actively destroy the sugar industry with the sugar levy. Today, this same Moses has “turncoat” on the workers and joins with the PNC elitist in their aloft agenda of destroying the livelihood of sugar workers. This makes him nothing but a wolf in sheep’s clothing, prepared to destroy the welfare of the people at the bottom so that he can fill his own pockets. That makes him anti-Guyanese.
But this history of the PNC oppressing the workers is well established. If one checks the International Labour Organisation’s records, they will find a complaint lodged internationally in 1978 which outlined how the PNC Government was actively trying to dislodge permanent workers with PNC members by hiring some 6132 ” PNC scabs” to cut cane, although there was an excess supply of regular sugar workers. As a result of this oppressive political action by the PNC then, thousands of rural folks from the villagers were denied an income.
Today we have the same old PNC and some new friends in the form of Moses Nagamootoo, playing their same old imperialist game with the lives of the working class.
My comments are not racist since some of the best cane harvesters can be found at the Wales, Rose Hall and Blairmont Estate and they are all Afro-Guyanese citizens. At Wales Estate, more than 40 per cent of the cane harvesters are Afro-Guyanese people but yet this is the first estate this cabal of North Georgetown African elites chose to shut down. The consequence of this Noel Holder-led charge against the sugar workers of Wales will reduce them to a state of beggary. So in their quest to destroy the sugar industry, they are prepared to starve many people who may have voted for them. This is nothing but desperation on the part of the Granger-led Government.
In the final analysis, this Government of geriatrics and political opportunists, like Moses Nagamootoo, are no good for Guyana, since all these “fat cats” are more concerned with is how much cash they can stuff in their own pockets, how many foreign trips they can make and how many free perks they can draw from the sweat of the working people of Guyana.
Sincerely,
Jai (Harry) Lall
