Six years after its closure, the Rose Hall Estate is to officially return to grinding today, bringing a sense of relief and life back to the community of Canje and by extension the county of Berbice.
After the closure of the estate in 2017 by the APNU+AFC government, workers were left in immense economic hardship which also affected the entire Canje community.
Estate Manager, Vijay Goberdhan yesterday told the Sunday Stabroek in an exclusive interview that the estate will officially return to operation today.
According to Goberdhan, some amount of cane was burned last week and it was ground at the factory in a trial run where some minor challenges were noticed. As such, they immediately devised a plan to deal with those challenges as they prepared to officially grind today.
Goberdhan has been part of the reopening process which included identifying what needed to be done, executing those tasks, and now putting the “execution into operation.”
He said that the momentum and feeling at the estate among the workers was one of a kind as the estate returning to grinding is bringing back much-needed hope to the community.
In June, the estate held a successful steam trial as the management and staff geared up for its reopening. The first set of canes was set alight in the fields located opposite the estate last week. The Canje community was exceedingly excited as they praised the PPP/C government for sticking to their promise to reopen the estate which currently employs over 1000 people.
In August, 2020, the majority of Canje residents who were laid off due to the closure of the Rose Hall Estate were still hopeful that the estate would be reopened as soon as possible under the new PPP/C administration, in keeping with the party’s manifesto promise. Residents are now looking forward to improved economic circumstances.
One resident of Canefield, East Canje Berbice told the Sunday Stabroek yesterday that her son after completing studies at the New Amsterdam Technical Institute sought employment at several different companies but they were not a good fit. However, after an employment drive was held at the estate he applied and got through.
According to the woman, since gaining employment at the estate her son has been able to purchase a car and develop a savings account – all of which he was unable to do at his previous places of employment due to the sum he was earning.
After the closure of the estate, residents of Canje and relatives of the fired sugar workers faced the hardest of hardships as in some situations families even turned to the trenches next to them for a water supply to carry out their daily chores as their GWI lines were snipped due to failure to pay bills.
The APNU+AFC government had shuttered the estate but implemented no feasible plan to cushion the unemployment that followed.
Supervisors at the estate were forced to seek odd jobs such as cleaning chicken pens to maintain their families, while most unemployed workers were unable to send their children to school as they could barely afford to provide daily meals.
The PPP/C, the then opposition, had teamed up with members of the business community to provide weekly handouts of rice, oil, and other grocery items just to help families make do and this was greatly welcomed by the workers and their families as they stood in long lines to ensure that they collected their share so that they could provide daily meals for their children.
