Dear Editor,
The GAWU was indeed very concerned after reading an article titled `GuySuCo managers, staff to up protest against NICIL’ which appeared in yesterday’s Stabroek News. From the news report, our Union learnt that relations between GuySuCo and the NICIL-SPU have now descended to the point that protests by GuySuCo personnel are being planned to ventilate their seeming frustrations with what they feel are the unhelpful actions of NICIL regarding the revitalization of the sugar corporation. We recognized the Stabroek News reporting as claimed by GuySuCo that the “…National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) is not working in the best interest of GuySuCo and that a NICIL takeover will further destabilize the Corporation and the country”. This could very well be the case if the situation is left to fester as it has been for several months now.
For the GAWU, and more so the thousands of sugar workers employed by the Corporation, the escalating public spat, though it can be argued that it has now descended to full blown conflict, is most disturbing especially considering the consequences such actions could have on many ordinary Guyanese. Indeed, the sugar industry, in the period of this Government, has been treated with what appears to be clear scorn and unconcern. When we look at the treatment and approach to sugar in the approximate three and a half years of the APNU+AFC, it is hard not to get that feeling. On that score, we recall the disowning of the industry, earlier this year, by both the Ministers of Agriculture and Finance.
The Government’s concern, or lack thereof, was recently manifested in the utterances of officials during the just concluded 2019 Budget debates. Most significantly, we recall Vice President and Minister of Public Security, Khemraj Ramjattan, according to a Demerara Waves report, labelling sugar workers as “your people” notwithstanding that in the 2015 Elections Campaign he had promised Guyanese not to close the sugar industry. Then his colleague Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo, in his contribution to the 2019 Budget debate, was reported as saying “[i]t had become unsustainable to operate the sugar industry without bringing the entire economy down!”.
Indeed, the current confusion of the sugar industry has to be laid squarely and fully at the door step of the Government. While the Stabroek News reports that “[t]he discord between GuySuCo and NICIL is seen as deeply embarrassing to the government”, we do not believe this is the case. If it were as troubling, as the Stabroek News points out, then, in our view, the Administration had more than ample time to fully and comprehensively address the matter.
Nevertheless, it is in the interest of the country and its people for the discord that has reached a boiling point to be addressed. The GAWU, once more, reiterates its call for the Administration to address the issue frontally. It has been allowed to prolong for far too long and with an eye on the industry’s future there is need to bring the matter to an end in the interest of all concerned, especially the workers.
Yours faithfully,
Seepaul Narine
General Secretary
