Amid widespread concern that the Rose Hall and Skeldon estates are to be shut down, Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo yesterday stated that the sugar industry will not be closed but that some factories would be shuttered to improve its prospects.
The PM was speaking at the Commemorative Ceremony of the 104th Anniversary of the fifteen Rose Hall Sugar Estate Martyrs, held at the monument site in Canje, Berbice.
Nagamootoo during his address to the gathering which was filled with government officials, regional officials, sugar workers and students, stated that sugar will never “die” in Guyana, since too many workers depend on the industry for their livelihood. However, he said that sugar factories are being closed off in an effort to improve the sugar industry in general, and bring it back to a profitable state. He said, “In order to make the industry profitable it may be necessary to reduce the number of factories to make each factory work 100% and not 50%, and to take sugar cane from other estates and transport them to these factories”. He also stated that transportation will be provided, “for all workers who want to go to the other factories.”
He then stressed that the closing of the necessary factories, “will not be a loss for sugar workers, it will be a gain because you will now be contributing to sugar production that will be become profitable.” He stated that only then will sugar workers and descendants of sugar workers be able to enjoy the gains from the sugar industry, and not an industry that “is going down the dark hole with no foreseeable guarantee that it could survive.”