Dear Editor,
In reference to former President Donald Ramotar’s trivializing missive, “Most GuySuCo letter writers have engaged in blame-shifting,” SN, Monday, April 08, I agree with him 100 percent, with this qualification: The blame starts with former President Bharrat Jagdeo and his nephew-in-law, former Agriculture Minis-ter Robert Persaud, and expanded over time to include Ramotar when he was PPP General Secretary. On October 2, 2010, Stabroek News reported, “If Skeldon factory doesn’t work sugar is dead – Jagdeo.” At the time of this dire warning, Jagdeo was speaking at the commissioning of the Guyana Water Incorporated GY$1.4b water treatment plant in Corriverton, when he unexpectedly diverted attention to the Skeldon Modernization Plant:
“This is a US$200 million facility… unfortunately, it’s not delivering the results we expected it to… they have too many mistakes going on there and I intend to fix it… it has to change… we’re not going to make that sort of investment to have a few people mess it up… so even if it means personally I have to get involved, I will get involved to ensure that it is fixed… that it’s delivering the kind of results that it should deliver so that we can safeguard the sugar industry… if that doesn’t work well, because the European Union cut our sugar prices by 36 percent… if that doesn’t work well the sugar industry is dead… it’s dead. It is as simple as that because the bulk of sugar will be produced in the Berbice area.”
If there was anyone who knew the true state of the sugar industry in 2010, it had to be Jagdeo, because his government approved the Chinese company – CNTIC – as the contractor of the factory, even though it never dealt with sugar or factory construction. And since Skeldon never worked as designed, it makes Ramotar’s missive moot. GuySuCo started dying slowly after Europe pulled out as our biggest sugar importer and its yearly grants slowly came an end. GuySuCo, deemed too big to fail, was eventually placed on life support hooked up to the government treasury, regardless of whatever little sugar it kept producing as estates were closed, starting with Diamond on the East Bank, in 2010 under the Jagdeo presidency.
But even after the costly US$200m Skeldon failed to deliver as expected, there was no formal Commission of Inquiry by the PPP government to figure out what went wrong. This had to be undertaken by the Coalition government, which assumed office in May 2015, and on January 5, 2016, Stabroek News reported on the commission’s findings, “Skeldon factory spurred GuySuCo woes – COI.” Matter of fact, the same month the Coalition took power – May 2015 – then Chairman of GuySuCo, Dr. Rajendra ‘Raj’ Singh, who was appointed by Presi-dent Ramotar, wrote a brow-raising letter to the Granger administration stating that GuySuCo was out of money and was facing closure the following month – June 2015 – if there was not an immediate subvention.
If the Coalition was shell-shocked, it was able to maintain its composure as it ponied up billions of dollars to pay sugar workers and kept GuySuCo on life support in June 2015. On this score, it boggles the mind that Ramotar could close out his trivializing letter by positing it was clear to him ‘the Coalition government took a political decision to punish sugar workers for their militancy in fighting for industrial and national democracy throughout the post-independent period’. If the Coalition really wanted to punish sugar workers, June 2015 was the opportune time. All President Granger had to do was make a nighttime presidential address to the nation on June 1, 2015, that his government inherited a sugar industry that had no money, and that his government would start working out a severance package deal, while examining which estate was viable to serve local consumption needs.
Instead, he followed the PPP’s lead and kept pumping billions of taxpayers’ money into GuySuCo until 2020, when his government fell in a No-Confidence Vote. But not before then GuySuCo Chairman, John Dow, wrote him a letter of June 2020, that GuySuCo was (again) out of money and needed an urgent infusion or face closure in June 2020. Even GAWU knew the trouble sugar was facing, “GuySuCo facing closure as finances exhausted,” www.gawugy.com June 29, 2010. The mere fact that GuySuCo was out of money the same month the PPP was voted out of power meant there was no long-term planning in effect. GuySuCo was being run worse than a ‘buns and mauby’ roadside stand, and the Ramotar government had to know this, just like it had to know in January of the same year (2015) that “GuySuCo failed to pay GY$1.5B in contributions to NIS,” KN, January 25, 2015.
Editor, I can go on writing about how sweet King Sugar turned into a Bitter Bastard under the PPP governments of Jagdeo and Ramotar, resulting in the so-called blame game of no one taking ownership for the downturn. But it is Ramotar’s notion that he knows what went wrong that really irks me. He was General Secretary of the PPP when GAWU took a series of strike actions against GuySuCo late in Jagdeo’s second term, causing observers to wonder why the PPP was behaving like a divided house. Was there a political motive from within?
In January 2010, Jagdeo went on a Middle East trip and took Ramotar as part of the entourage. On their return, there was talk, sometime in February 2010, of paying GuySuCo for Diamond sugar estate lands to be converted to housing. An amount of GY$4B was identified for land acquisition and an additional GY$4B for developing the land for housing. I did address this rocky development in a letter to Stabroek News on February 27, 2010, “The real issue is the Housing Minister’s failure to answer questions about money voted for housing development,” but it turned out this land acquisition issue was revolving around the fact GuySuCo ran out of money, and both PPP General Secretary Ramotar and PPP union GAWU had to know.
In March 11, 2015, Demerara Waves reported, “GuySuCo wage bill in jeopardy if land isn’t sold to Housing Ministry,” which meant President Ramotar had to know the financial straits in which the company found itself, because his government was literally banking on the Geology and Mines Commission to transfer GY$3B to GuySuCo for his government to acquire sugar estate lands, and the money used to pay sugar workers. Ramotar’s knowledge of the state of the sugar industry, at least since 2010, should absolve everyone who played a subordinate role under his government and the Jagdeo government. The blame game ends with the buck stopping at the door of two PPP Presidents: Jagdeo and Ramotar.
Sincerely,
Emile Mervin
