Dear Editor,
I refer to Mr E. B. John’s letter: `Fundamentally counterproductive interventions on GuySuCo’ (SN,29/5/18)
One cannot gainsay the excellent points made by Mr John about the deep psycho-social role and impact of GuySuCo and the sugar industry on the lives of Guyanese who work and live in the sugar estates. As someone whose roots are firmly planted in this nodal industry, I also feel deep senses of hurt and disappointment at the virtual ruination taking place in the sugar industry.
However, I do not believe that any amount of sentimentality will return the industry to its halcyonic days. Those days belong to an era when the industry was under private ownership or management by an ‘independent’ management ‘contractor’.
So long as the Government continues to ‘pussyfoot’ with its control of the industry the decline will continue; to me there can be no better solution but to return to the ‘status quo ante’ i.e. to accept the recommendations of its own COI into the industry to completely privatize it or appoint an effective, independent management team to run it.
Yours faithfully,
Nowrang Persaud
