Part I
A few readers (I suspect primarily students) have asked me, when presenting my reform proposals, to also undertake two brief tasks, namely: 1) sum up my views as to whether the Sugar Modernization Project (SSMP) ever made sense from its inception; and 2) offer a few observations on a number of the other proposals for reforming the sugar industry that have surfaced during the years of the PPP/C administration. I shall attempt these tasks in today’s column, principally as a lead-in to the presentation of my own suggestions for the reform of the sugar industry.
Operational efficiencies
As regards the first task I should, in order to be fair, state that the SSMP was never intended as a stand-alone project confined to Skeldon or indeed the wider Skeldon-Berbice area. As originally formulated, it