On the occasion of the 108th anniversary of the Rose Hall Estate Martyrs, Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha on Saturday announced in the East Canje, Berbice area that the Rose Hall Estate will be the first of the three closed sugar estates to be formally reopened.
The minister along with officials from GuySuCo and GAWU joined regional executives in a wreath laying ceremony at the Rose Hall Martyrs Memorial site located a stone’s throw away from the estate.
At the location, Mustapha said that it is important to remember the Rose Hall Estate Martyrs who would have made the ultimate sacrifice for citizens for Guyana “to enjoy what we are enjoying here today.” Fifteen persons were shot and killed by colonial police.
Mustapha said that the closure of four estates under APNU+AFC would have resulted in the destruction of communities, village economies and families. At Sheet Anchor Village, East Canje Berbice, Mustapha announced on Saturday that the Rose Hall Estate will be the first to reopen as he stressed that GuySuCo is a way of life for residents in that area and the country. He argued that the PPP/C government has stayed on track with their promise to ensure that the estates are reopened, noting, that the Rose Hall Estate, Skeldon Estate and East Demerara Estate will be reopened while a gas-to-shore pipeline will be sited at Wales, West Bank Demerara – the location of another shuttered estate. This project is expected to create over 3000 jobs, he said. Analysts and experts have raised concerns over this plan as the PPP/C government is yet to present the relevant studies.
Mustapha told the gathering, that the previous government failed to recognize the role the Rose Hall Estate played in neighbouring communities.
“We recognized when the estate was closed how the village economy died a sudden death.” He added, that the persons directly attached to the estate were affected along with others who benefitted indirectly. “… and because of the closure of the estate we have seen poverty increased almost by 60% in areas like these because there was no industry to absorb the labour that came out of the sugar industry.”
Mustapha also pointed out that although many organizations condemned the closure of the estates the now opposition continues to criticize the government for working to reopen the sugar estates. He said that the PPP/C is working for GuySuCo to break even and then produce at a lesser cost.
Mustapha opined that had the APNU+AFC been re-elected then that “would have been the end of the industry in our country.” He said Minister supported his point by saying that when they took over they discovered that the other functioning estates “were limping on.”
The minister added: “Although they took a $30 B bond they did not spend that money to do recapitalization in the industry. They took all the assets from the closed sugar estate and put it over to (government holding company) NICIL and left all the liabilities with GuySuCo, so they were pushing to close the sugar industry.”
The minister stressed that this year work will intensify at Rose Hall “so that by the second crop of next year we can have sugar being produced at Rose Hall here so that the estate can come back to its former glory.”
“We recognize the importance of GuySuCo because GuySuCo is not only about producing sugar. GuySuCo is a way of life for us”, he stressed.
Meanwhile, according to Mustapha, after drainage and irrigation which were being done by the estates were removed and placed under the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority, that authority had to spend $1.8 B on those works. He then sought to point out that persons who made such decisions did not look at the impact and the role of GuySuCo.
