To date there has been no formal submission of the promised quarterly reports on the expenditure of the Guyana Sugar Corporation which were promised to the National Assembly by the Agriculture Minster, Dr Leslie Ramsammy during consideration of this year’s budget estimates. Parliament will convene today and critics are left with no real answers on how the $6 billion GuySuCo subvention is being expended thus far for 2014. Ramsammy told Stabroek News that by the end of June he would be prepared to provide the financial breakdown inclusive of money spent from January to June to the sectoral committee. He would be referring to the Eco-nomic Services Commit-tee.
APNU shadow agriculture minister, Dr Rupert Roopnaraine, stated that written questions will have to be submitted to parliament for detailed responses from the agriculture minister. He said that it was imperative to get a commitment from the minister by the end of June.
Stabroek News did ask Roopnaraine given the six months that have already elapsed why the opposition had not taken a more determined stance on the financial disclosure. He stated that the ministry was given time to prepare the statement but he did also acknowledge that more had to be done to apply pressure.
Roopnaraine told Stabroek News that he was prepared to put forward oral questions to begin the discussion but to elicit comprehensive responses that would not be sufficient. He did speak on the need to have a financial breakdown so answers can be provided to GuySuCo workers as well as private cane farmers. He said the money from the European Union for the Guyana National Action Plan (GNAP) was to be disbursed in such a manner as to provide financial support to workers and private cane farmers and not just to the technical aspects of the sugar industry.
APNU’s shadow minister of agriculture said that of course the opposition wanted the financial breakdown and they were very interested in having the ministry provide the quarterly reports. The lack of pressure by the opposition however has other stakeholders frustrated that at the parliamentary level the opposition is calling for transparency but had done very little to secure it. Critics of the sugar industry have noted that the opposition is in a prime positon to keep after the state-owned corporation and expose the lack of transparency.
Roopnaraine told Stabroek News that for years the government “has danced around the EU funding and has been putting it into the Consolidated Fund” and how much is actually going to the stakeholders needs to be shown.
Through GNAP the EU has provided over $21 billion that was supposed to be used to reform the sugar industry since 2006. Head of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers’ Union (GAWU), Komal Chand, has in the past said that he would like to see “every cent” of the EU money go toward assisting the industry to become more competitive.
Chand told Stabroek News that the minister may ask for an extension prior to providing the quarterly reports to the House. Meanwhile, since last September Carl Greenidge, APNU’s Shadow Finance Minister, told Stabroek News that GuySuCo will meet with the Economic Services Committee and will have to answer as to how consistently it has met the indicators set by the EU for funding and how the money was used. The opposition to date has not brought GuySuCo before the committee.
