Dear Editor
I refer to a letter from Mr Tulsie in the SN of January 24, captioned ‘Phased restructuring of the sugar industry is better than some of the other choices,’ and I offer three comments below.
- I still think that Mr Tulsie is off base in trying to put in place better mechanisms to grow a crop which has become completely uneconomical in this country and I for one, in my personal capacity, do not see how we can reverse the fortunes of the corporation by continuing to try to grow sugar cane for sugar manufacture under our present conditions. Since 1978 there was a pilot project of 300 acres at Diamond Estate which was operating as a completely mechanized operation and ultimately failed. That countless attempts since the mid-70s to convert our lands to what in other places would be mechanically compatible fields, have met with complete failure. And that it is clear that our workforce is dying in the industry. In 1992 the sugar industry had 24,000 employees and without paying a cent in compensation it dwindled to 18,000 by 2000. But in that same period the wage bill of the industry rose from 4.6 billion dollars in 1992 to over 12 billion in 2000. For Mr Tulsie’s information the Houston workforce died on us; we used to load 40 punts a day but by 2006 we were loading 3 punts a day. Our severance pay was very small. I never worked at Houston so I do not have exact figures.
- If I thought that they were asking me to be a Director of GuySuCo to find ways to continue growing sugar cane for making sugar on these unique lands perfectly designed for other things, in view of the massive wage bill and the inability to mechanize, I would not have accepted the position. I accepted since I saw an opportunity for using a part of the sugar cane lands through a diversification process to bring wealth to my country. These sugar cane fields are unique on this planet, because of the method we have to bring the canes to our factories; as far as I know no other country has such a system. This unique punt system has evolved because of our high rainfall and the fact that we are below sea level, but it is this combination of circumstances which has impeded us through numerous efforts to mechanise even in the face of an ever rising wage bill. In addition this unique layout was the product of the labour of our ancestors, both the slaves and our indentured workers, even mine, who came from Madeira for that purpose. Very soon now Mr Tulsie will be made aware of the fact that diversification is not off-the-stove or on some back-burner for us, it is very much on the biggest front-burner we have.
My intention was not to insult Mr Tulsie by disagreeing with him; my intention was to show that his path out of this morass of economic chaos this industry has been left in, is wrong. He concedes that I have knowledge of the industry, so now he must trust me when I look at these unique cane fields. I see a national treasure, the patrimony of our ancestors and not an economic disaster. Very soon we will answer all of these questions, we have to have confirmation of our vision and if right, we will all benefit, the entire nation. I have never lied to the Guyanese people and I am asking that they give us a little more time to disclose a plan to make the combination of sugar cane and other crops an economic success for GuySuCo so that the workers will not be displaced. They will in fact be working in an industry with a future, and the country will not have to fetch the industry as an economic basket case in perpetuity.
- And finally, I will presume to ask the sugar workers, in my personal capacity, even the workers at Wales, to listen to what we are telling them; there is a promise that by October we may be able to offer a plan which can help to make the loss of the Wales factory just a memory of bad times. And I am also asking them to trust us and not those who violated their trust and put them in this position today. Remember that I was born into this sugar industry, and the people who are leading them down the garden path for purely gross political gain, have probably never been inside a cane field. Their ancestors may have, but not them, so what gives them the right to tell us what to do now? And in the end it is they who have put the industry into this sad state today. How dare they advise us now!
Yours faithfully,
Tony Vieira
