Dear Editor,
Maybe truth is finally finding currency in governance in Guyana. In the SN article of January 21, captioned ‘Enmore packaging plant key to making sugar sweet again’ the Minister admitted that the sugar industry is unlikely to “return to a state of profitability” for “about three years or more” because “several goals are still be to met.” Sugar continues to die a painful, slow natural death in Guyana. Yet the government continues to engage in reckless spending adventurism, which does not seem attributable to reasoned decision-making and careful policy contemplation. The real question the government should have asked before its Alice in Wonderland escapades in the industry is whether sugar still retains the capacity for profitability. This question should have been asked, debated and beaten to death by the Freedom House power-brokers. The PPP played politics with the sugar industry and ended up losing the industry. The massive investment is unlikely to be recouped.
The continuing philosophy that it is better to build big before planting more is putting the cart before the horse, and the cart and horse tale gone wrong is creating white elephants in abundance. Building big shiny structures looks good to the blind but not to those who are still blessed with vision who know of the terrible concerns facing the industry, including sugar workers’ rights and compensation, falling prices, decreasing markets, productivity decline and production shortfalls. So now the next big project announced by the acting Prime Minister is packaged sugar which is being heralded as the harbinger of fatter pockets. I am not holding my breath on this one because just recently as I was browsing the supermarket I came across something remarkable: a package of sugar bearing the name ‘Demerara Sugar.’ Excited and enthused, I grabbed it with great hope and anticipation that somehow my nation has done something right in trademarking our legacy for eternity. Alas, my hope was quickly dashed and I threw the product down in a fit of humiliation. The package of sugar bearing ‘Demerara Sugar’ was not from Guyana but from Mauritius. Somehow, a small island in the Indian Ocean has managed to conscript our name for a product that is distinctly Guyanese. I am now leery about Demerara rum, anticipating I will see a ‘Demerara rum’ sticker on a product from Madagascar next.
Yours faithfully,
Michael Maxwell
Editor’s note
We reported in October last year that GuySuCo was engaged in litigation in the United States and Canada to defend it rights to the trademark ‘Demerara Gold’ which was being used on packets of sugar from Mauritius.
