Aaah…sugar!! How sweet it is!! After the Brits developed a taste for tea in the 17th century – from China where they became the biggest drug dealers in history -by supplying opium to pay for their habit – they used slave labour in our neck of the woods to produce sugar to sweeten up their cuppa that had become a habit as strong as the opium they plied the Chinese with!! And in a nutshell – even though the sentence is a wee bit long – that summarizes our history!! If it weren’t for sugar our coastlands would in all likelihood still be verdant and mosquito-ridden swamps!!
But as it is with all things in his world – what goes up must come down – with the law of gravity evidently extending into economic activities!! And so, after sustaining the entire colony for centuries – albeit at the cost of much suffering to the peoples dragged here to produce it – sugar production plummeted from over 350,000 tons annually at independence to a paltry 47,000 tons last year. And from what’s been produced to date it’s almost certain this year’s production gonna be even more abysmal. In the words of one local soothsayer, “it’s a shad, shad shituation”!!
Wha’ happened? Fingers are pointing right, left and center with blame casting – but mostly in the direction of the new CEO who was parachuted from the Private Sector to help stem the hemorrhaging of the industry – as if its major artery was slashed!! The poor fella – who has vast experience in the most critical sector of the sugar industry as a cane farmer – pointed out that in addition to inheriting more afflictions than Job – the rains – whether controlled by God or nature -hasn’t been kind. To say the least!!
But the travails of sugar – as with everything else ailing our country – begins with Burnham’s insistence on “controlling he commanding heights of he economy”. As Rodney phrased it so delicately everything Burnham touched “turned to shit”!! He nationalized sugar in 1976 and appointed persons to run it who were more au fait with loyalty to the him than to production imperatives!! Not surprisingly, before long – as happened with bauxite which he’d earlier nationalized – production sloped southwards.
When the industry generated super profits, rather than funneling it into rehabilitating the factories and fields, he frittered it away in an ill-conceived hydroelectric scheme. Things could only go anywhere but up. His successor Hoyte brought back the successors to the old colonialists but being rewarded based on production, they ran the infrastructure further into the ground. And ensured the PPP would get “goadie” after took over in 1992.
The coup-de-grace was PNC’s Granger’s closure of 4 plantations in 2016!! Poor Paul!!
…with electoral arrangements??
The Opposition didn’t even wait for the elections date to be announced before they launched their campaign to discredit the almost certain result of the PPP winning. Rather than acknowledging they’ve been shooting themselves in the foot– they’ve decided to repeat their strategy from 2020. To wit – claim that the PPP’s win gonna be due to them resurrecting the dead and apparating the foreign Guyanese on the voters’ list to put their Xs on the Cup!!
Their proposal to stymie the PPP’s “ruse” is “BIOMETRICS”!! The government said the time was too short. The Opposition retorted that “Hey!! The Elections commission of Ghana introduced biometrics in SIX WEEKS”!!! And that just goes to show how disingenuous our Opposition will get to have an excuse to make trouble!!
Yes, from a narrow perspective that might seem so – but in reality, biometrics was introduced in Ghana since 2012!! And every four years since then hey have had to make massive changes to fix glitches.
They really want biometrics as another excuse for riots!!
…respecting churches?
Your Eyewitness was quite taken aback to learn that some hooded man set fire to Bishop Edgehill’s church in Lodge. While we know that PPP politicians are fair game to Scrapeheads, are churches no sacred no mo?
