Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo yesterday announced that sugar workers will now benefit from a seven percent salary increase which they are expected to receive before the end of the year.
“…..In April when I met with the sugar workers who were terminated I indicated that apart from that $250,000 grant…there would be a salary increase for the sugar workers this year. And, I promised at that time that whatever the public servants got the sugar workers would also get. And so we have decided that the 7 percent increase would also be awarded to the sugar workers,” Jagdeo disclosed yesterday during an interview with the state media.
He said that the decision was taken during a meeting with Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Guyana Sugar Corporation Incorporated (GuySuCo) Sasenarine Singh, Minister of Agriculture Zulfikar Mustapha and representatives of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) yesterday.
The main purpose of the meeting, he said was to finalize some existing issues in GuySuCo and confirm the wages and salary increase for sugar workers.
Under the previous administration, thousands of sugar workers were placed on the breadline following the closure of the Wales, Skeldon, Rose Hall and East Demerara estates.
Jagdeo reiterated in the interview that while the APNU+AFC administration was in office, thousands of sugar workers lost their jobs and they received no salary increase. “…So the $250,000 grant was a way to alleviate some of the issues that they faced…..We had to give a salary increase to the sugar workers this year,” he said.
In November, Senior Minister in the Office of President with responsibility for Finance, Dr Ashni Singh had announced a 7 percent salary increase for public servants.
“….I am pleased to announce now that your Government will be paying an across-the-board increase of seven per cent to public servants, teachers, members of the Disciplined Services, constitutional office holders, as well as government pensioners,” Singh had said during an address to the nation.
The increase which was not tax free will be retroactive to January 1, 2021 and was paid with the December salaries.
Just last week, the National Assembly approved $5.1B in supplementary allocations.
Among the allocations approved was a sum of $3.8B for the Ministry of Agriculture which will provide funding for one-off grants to severed sugar workers, out-of-crop support to GuySuCo and operational expenses for the National Drainage Irrigation Authority.
During questioning, Mustapha had highlighted to the House that $2.3B was given to GuySuCo for out-of-crop support. He had added that funds have also been set aside for fuel and lubricants, wages and salaries, essential parts and materials and pension.
Over the past two weeks, thousands of the sacked sugar workers have received a $250,000 one-off grant. The payment of the grant is a fulfillment of a promise made by Jagdeo to the sugar workers in October of this year.
During the briefing with the state media yesterday, Jagdeo said he also informed GuySuCo that in the New Year, Government will be engaging them on ways to strengthen its management.
“Currently we have several proposals and because of other pressing issues we have not been able to review these proposals….And so very early in the new year, we will return to that issue. That is how we can strengthen management in GuySuCo,” Jagdeo said.
Others issues which were discussed, Jagdeo said included the “dire” situation in terms of production and returning the closed sugar estates to viability.
“….Albion produces about 50 percent of our sugar and we have lost almost 80 percent of the cane for the next crop because of flooding and excessive rainfall,” Jagdeo said.
“…..The key idea was to ensure that we first of all create alternative employment for people in areas where we could not return to sugar, that APNU had closed the estates,” he added.
In a statement last evening, GAWU welcomed the salary increase.
The union said that the increase will allow sugar workers to “reclaim” what they lost under the former administration.
“For the GAWU, the decision by the Government to provide workers with a seven (7) percent rise in pay equivalent to their counterparts in other sectors of the State marks a reversal of the policy of discrimination that was meted out to them during the Coalition Government,” the statement said,
According to the statement, the wages and salaries of the sugar workers were “frozen” by the previous administration while other employees in the public sector benefitted from increases.
“During that period, they suffered immensely as the cost-of-living rose appreciably while their real wages tumbled. In computations, GAWU pointed out between 2015 and 2019, sugar workers’ real wages declined by some 42%,” the statement highlighted.
It added that other longstanding benefits were also suspended.
With the holidays approaching, the union said the focus will now be shift to the Government to ensure that sugar workers receive their payments.
