The Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) met with representatives of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Monday and expressed concern over the lack of transparency in the divestment of sugar estates and recapitalisation of others under the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo).
A GAWU release said that they met with the six-person team for an hour during its visit to Guyana to conduct its annual Article IV Consultation.
The concerns raised by GAWU surround the manner in which the divestment and recapitalisation processes occurred. The union, in a press release, said that there was little transparency in the approach taken by government to divest the now closed Skeldon, Rose Hall and East Demerara Estates.
“We pointed out that the divestment would possibly be the largest in the nation’s history yet the Guyanese people were none the wiser about the value of the assets being put up for sale. Moreover, we reminded the IMF that its 2017 Article IV report on Guyana had urged the Government to ensure that displaced sugar workers be protected by appropriate safety nets. This suggestion we hastened to point out was not considered as apart from the statutory severance payments to workers, which we reminded were illegally withheld and corrected following the intervention of the Courts…” the release noted. “There is hardly, if any, tangible expression of the State’s assistance to the workers and communities affected. We pointed out that since the estate closures, many affected remain hard pressed and finding themselves in difficult and miserable situations. We shared that, in some instances, children’s schooling has been truncated and families have disintegrated. Moreover, the opportunities for employment remain almost non-existent,” it continued.
Further, as far as recapitalisation goes, it was noted that workers have been left in the dark about GuySuCo’s plan for same.
GAWU stated that a plan to guide the $30b bond secured seems to be absent, and while this concern was shared, they have received no response on the matter from GuySuCo.
In addition to sharing their thoughts on the sugar industry, the union was also asked by the IMF to speak on other areas of the agricultural sector, including the rice, poultry and fishing industries, as well as the oil and gas industry. On the latter, the release said that they stated that it was their view that the country was “least prepared at this time to effectively deal with the industry and what it could bring to the proverbial table”. “We also shared views about the possibility of inequality between the oil and non-oil sectors of the economy and its ramifications for wider societal issues,” it added.
It was noted that the IMF team welcomed their responses and committed to examining their suggestions in finer detail.
“The GAWU, for many years now, has been interacting with the IMF during its annual country visits. We have found those interactions as worthwhile and provides us yet another opportunity to represent our members and the workers of Guyana generally,” the union pointed out.
