Dear Editor,
I believe, like Dr Ian McDonald, that the loss of sugar is of some considerable consequence for both economy and society (Sunday Stabroek February 26). And we will have to tread carefully and gingerly to ensure that those who still depend on it are not simply cast aside for want of opportunity. Unlike Dr McDonald, however, I have none of the nostalgic pieties or associated reverences for the industry as he does. I was born with Enmore ringing in my ears while the next decade and a half was one bitter confrontation after another – all politically motivated.
It was clear by then that sugar would have less than a settled or agreeable future. And however much some would like to ‘nice it up’ it is Jagan’s description, “bitter sugar”, that continues to hold sway. Paradoxically, it was also Jagan’s government and party with both occasion and opportunity for twenty-three years that put the final nail in the coffin. It’s called the SSMP ‒ the Skeldon Sugar Modernisation Project.
From what is said it appears Dr McDonald has not read the CoI. If he had he would not have said some of the things he did and may have listened to the sage advice of his father and left well alone.
None of the four points he makes can stand critical scrutiny.
First, he claims, “The industry brings in considerable foreign exchange very hard to replace, and it does so with an inexhaustible, ever-renewable resource”. How is that possible when the foreign exchange itself is earned by ever increasing subsidies. GuySuCo’s debt is now estimated at near $80 billion. Where is the foreign exchange that sugar earned to pay for that? Moreover, the old Ricardian homilies of comparative advantage – “inexhaustible, ever renewable resources” – have always had to match wits and wisdom with economies of scale and other efficiencies ‒ out of reach locally. In other words, in an increasingly competitive environment, after the Equalisation of the Sugar Duties Act, 1846, our options have always been severely limited, recognized by Williams since 1944 and our colleagues at UWI since 1968: Sugar Our Life/Our Death. Even in the halcyon days of the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement (1947) we were operating under the protective cover of a monopoly.
Second, he suggests, “the industry provides direct employment for 16,000 people (if that is the current figure) and therefore livelihood for as many as 90,000 Guyanese”. The blanket statement is suspect. Much of the employment in sugar is nothing more than welfare, paid to produce a commodity that cannot fetch a competitive price on the world market, and, therefore must be subsidized. But how did Dr McDonald arrive at the figure of 90,000 Guyanese dependent on 16,000 sugar workers? Sugar workers and its largest contingent – harvesters ‒ tend to be younger and, therefore, have smaller families. Moreover, since the demographic turn, (declining fertility and migration) family size has fallen off. The 2002 population census suggests the average size of a household in Region Six is 3.8. If we take that as the average size of a sugar worker’s family how did we end up with 90,000 as the figure of those directly dependent on the industry? 50,000 is a significant difference from 90,000 scattered between a long line of sugar estates along the coast from Lenora to Crabwood Creek.
Third, his view that “Estate operations and requirements also generate spin-off economic, social and infrastructure activity” is a dubious proposition at best. If anything quite the opposite has been the case. In fact the modernization of the industry after the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement guaranteed that the local forward and backward linkages to the local economy were going to be less and less as the industry strove to replace labour with technology. I suspect the point, however, was not to lay bare the inner workings of the industry or how the mix of technology and labour was changing its internal dynamics but rather to locate the real source of the dilemma: a moral claim for attention, “without which whole communities deteriorate into deprivation and disorder or ghost-town despair”. More of this below.
Finally, Dr McDonald believes that “Much of rural Guyana is historically and significantly held together by the framework of the sugar industry”. I am not certain when last Dr McDonald visited “rural Guyana”. He might be surprised to know that rural Guyana is neither “held together by the framework of the sugar industry” nor dependent upon it for its survival. Large sections of rural communities long weaned themselves off sugar. To take one section of workers as an example: harvesters. For them employment has always been a seasonal affair: two crops consisting of two ‘in-crops’ and two ‘out a crop’ in which the former consists of 6 months and the latter of another six months. These vary, especially in unpredictable weather conditions ‒ El Niño and La Niña, etc. Moreover, ‘out a crop’ becomes vague and uncertain when as happened at Skeldon after 2008. There breakdowns, walk-outs, strikes, put-down-tools provide little guarantee that ‘in crop’ time will be adequate to qualify for ‘out a crop’ employment.
At the same time, improvement in the employment climate in other areas saw a side way movement of labour away from sugar. Over the past decade it is estimated that at least 1,000 jobs were created in off-shore fishing at several fish ports between Good Hope and Crabwood Creek in the Upper Corentyne. Similarly rice, despite the recent setbacks, has expanded production and now most farmers in the area – Black Bush Polder, 52-74, Crabwood – are forcing three crops instead of the traditional two – sucking in employment for payment on the spot without government knowledge and PAYE. In the meantime rice has long passed sugar as a foreign exchange earner.
Declining fertility, migration and general population levelling off, including preciptous declines since 1980 added to flagging employment demands. Again taking Region Six as our example, it is now estimated that between 1980 and 2012 the population of Region Six declined from 153,000 to a little more than 109,000, a loss of near 44,000, while other regions registered small gains or remained stable. If this is an indication of anything it appears that large numbers of rural Guyana has taken flight while rural women refuse to add to the stockpile of labour for anyone.
Declining fertility and increasing migration are now aided by a two additional factors, remittances and expected migration. These now ensure that even casual labour – carpenters’ crews define them as porters, ie labour with little experience and no particular skill – comes at a heavy premium. Anyone looking for such labour for a few days’ work must be willing to pay a minimum of $5,000 per day, no PAYE, immediate pay and promise of a drink in the afternoon.
The PPP itself provided communities and workers in the area with the most compelling reasons for scepticism and doubt for the gradual withdrawal of their labour. In December 2010 the Chairman of the corporation issued a letter to GAWU threatening suspension of its status and end to collective bargaining in the industry. And while the absent President of the Republic was quick to call a halt to the spat, on his return the cat was out of the bag. That anyone in the administration would be allowed such political latitude and gamesmanship was itself a matter of some political speculation. Or was it, as others suspected, an orchestrated effort to bring the union in line when the Skeldon factory was stumbling badly. It provided the President with an easy reprieve on the issue while boosting his administrative presence and political acumen in demanding a withdrawal of the letter. In the event neither the government nor GuySuCo could conceal their ineptitude in the matter nor reassure anyone of their good will or good faith – especially sugar workers.
In conclusion I want to suggest there is nothing here that offers a solution to the dilemma we face with such sugar. What comes across as the conceptual frame in which the narrative is structured are two statements at the ends of points three and four.
The first comes at the end of the statement about foreign exchange earnings and “inexhaustible, ever renewable resource”. These we suggest are largely fictitious. Foreign exchange, we suggest, is acquired on the basis of subsidies and debt. And then the coup de grace: “without which whole communities deteriorate into deprivation and disorder or ghost-town despair”.
The second comes at the end of the statement in point four where we are told “rural Guyana is historically and significantly held together by the framework of the sugar industry”. That may have been the case once, but no longer so, especially after local nationalism took aim at sugar as the chief culprit of exclusion, marginalization and exploitation in the nation’s history. And while sugar, as employer and other economic activities, may continue to have a certain influence, its once hegemonic presence has been considerably eroded. But Dr Mcdonald insists, “If this fabric is abruptly torn apart the socio-political consequences would be grave and disruptive. In other words, sugar contributes a large element of rural stability in the nation”.
Two claims both of dubious origin and sociological veracity, followed by two statements of alarming outcomes and unnerving consequences: “communities deteriorate into deprivation and disorder or ghost-town despair” while “If this fabric is torn apart the socio political consequences would be grave and disruptive”.
It would be most alarming, if this were the case. But, as I indicate, there is little evidence on the ground for it. If anything it seems caught in a certain hysteria that has taken shape delivered through emotive tones and incendiary language of the dire consequences to follow.
Yours faithfully,
Rishee Thakur
