Dear Editor,
I support the call by Isabelle de Caires for the government to lay out its detailed plans for Wales Sugar Estate, but more importantly for there to be the widest possible public debate on this issue in the parliament as well as in every town hall meeting in the country.
Telling cane farmers to transport their cane to Uitvlugt for grinding is prohibitively costly to the point where it is not feasible. Telling retrenched workers to go and find work at Uitvlugt is also not feasible owing to commuting and travel time constraints.
Then to what use do we put the lands? Alternative crops including sugar cane and processing the latter for ethanol? There has been little or no information on what next. Does government have secret plans to sell these lands for house lots or to real estate developers? The Agriculture Minister is already on record as saying these things do not bring in foreign exchange. But so far he has not mapped out in detail what economic activities will fulfil that forex goal.
Let this nation have the fullest possible debate on WSE. Do not make the same mistake of the Jagdeo-Ramotar governments. Instead of presenting their plans to parliament, they proceeded to build Amaila and Marriott. Both projects blew up in their faces.
Yours faithfully,
Mike Persaud
