At one point in our history, sugar served as the crown jewel of Guyana’s industries. Our numerous and expansive plantation estates would set us apart from others in the region. While the reign of white gold has long since passed, there is a maintained commitment towards the idea of returning sugar to its glory days. This is an ambitious task as sugar has not been profitable for the sugar workers or the Guyanese economy for several decades now.
The industry continues to suck up all the money poured into it, without offering any substantial output or any chance of relief to those its maintenance/reopening are said to serve. There are many reasons why sugar is in the state that it is now. These range from falling prices for sugar worldwide, loss of preferential agreements, high cost of production matched with low output, lack of diversification, political mismanagement and the list goes on.
Sugar has certainly become a black hole for the nation’s resources and the industry must be phased out and resources diverted into other avenues that would be profitable for all involved. Many Caribbean countries have downsized or completely moved on from sugar and reshaped their economies to provide more opportunities for their people. In Guyana, we remain tethered to sugar because of its ethno political dimensions. This refusal to part with it despite its costly weight is just another way in which the ethno political tensions we claim do not exist continue to impact our collective development.
When the former coalition administration would have shut down several sugar estates, there was widespread condemnation. There remains no doubt in my mind that closing the estates was the right choice, the money that is needlessly pumped into sugar would be better spent on critical developmental areas concerning education, health and agriculture. However, the haphazard and callous way in which the closures were done still remains a sore point.
There is a heightened contempt that our leaders possess for the working class that results in their refusal to assess their decisions in depth so as to understand how those decisions will have direct and spin-off effects on the lives of workers. The closures were abrupt and with no seeming interest on the after effects on the workers and the communities they hail from. The economic fallout for families and their communities was swift and brutal. There were no real plans for readjustments or reforming the estates to make them suitable for other ventures. No relief measures were provided and worker severance took a long time to be realized.
The ruling administration in their election campaign had made promises to reopen the closed sugar estates. This was not a surprising campaign promise. Political leaders have always used sugar to instill hope and a kind of paternalism with sugar workers. Our people have convenient memories and politicians always utilize this. The same administration now speaking about saving sugar was the driving force behind its ruin. During their reign, they also oversaw the closure of sugar cultivations and would treat workers in the same callous way. Yet, they maintain that they stand for the people.
While no timeline is being committed to, statements made indicate that reopening of estates is a top priority. First though, there are apparently surveys and asset assessments that need to be done. It would be interesting to see what other studies can possibly be done on and come out of our sugar industry. One would think that over two decades of managing an industry would give one an extremely fair idea of what can and needs to be done. How many studies and bailouts does one industry need before it is allowed to die its natural death?
I think at this point, we might have all figured out that sugar has long since stopped being a conversation that is centred on economic health and sustainability. It is one that is centred on emotive political manoeuvrings that places the interest of the people on the backburner while politicians continue to scheme to figure out how they can make an ailing industry work out for them and their grasp on power.