President David Granger says that there needs to be another retreat to discuss the findings of the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the sugar industry after the first one was not attended by “several important ministers” due to overseas travel.
During Friday’s recording of the Ministry of the Presidency’s programme, `The Public Interest’ the President said “I don’t want to preempt what the cabinet is going to do. We still have to have a retreat (and) unfortunately because of a series of international meetings, culminating with the meeting in Paris, several important ministers, minister of finance, minister of foreign affairs, minister of governance were out of the country and a retreat was planned in which these very matters would be discussed.”
The need for another retreat represents a further delay in taking decisions on the troubled sugar industry. The initial report was to be presented on September 30, however this was postponed and a report was presented to Agriculture Minister Noel Holder on October 19. He later referred to