Dear Editor,
Why does the PPP government continue to pour billions of taxpayers’ dollars into a failing sugar industry? The answer is not economic—it’s political. Despite knowing for over two decades that the industry is no longer viable, the PPP keeps propping it up because it is politically advantageous to do so. This is not about reviving sugar. It’s about securing votes.
Successive PPP governments have used the sugar industry as a tool to keep families along the sugar belt financially and politically dependent. These communities—once thriving off preferential sugar prices from Europe—have been left vulnerable since those prices were removed. A joint analysis by the World Bank and the Government of Guyana in the early 2000s confirmed that the industry was no longer competitive due to high production costs and global market changes (World Bank Report, 2003). Another report outlining the financial impacts of the loss of preferential prices and non-competitiveness, high cost of sugar production in Guyana and the need to transition sugar workers to other more reliable income generating work can be accessed at: https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=2444f0aaece8bbe8661c98a67c7f3b8af944b93b. I
And yet, here we are, in 2025, still spending billions of dollars annually to sustain an industry that cannot stand on its own. Why? Because maintaining economic dependency means maintaining political loyalty. It’s a cynical strategy—keep the people reliant on government handouts and jobs tied to the sugar industry, and secure their votes in return. Imagine if all that money had been redirected over the last 20 years. Families could have received skills training, business financing, access to higher education, and support to launch their own cooperative or individual ventures. The sugar belt could have become a belt of innovation, small enterprise, and self-sufficiency. But instead, the government has chosen dependency over development.
This is a betrayal. A betrayal of potential, of dignity, and of every young person in Berbice, West Demerara, and beyond, who deserved more than a failing industry to inherit. Even the current Minister of Finance, who hails from Berbice, knows this truth. So do the President and Vice President. The facts are not new. The consequences are not unclear. The silence is deliberate. It’s time to break this cycle of engineered dependence. Let taxpayers’ money be used to build futures, not to keep sugar belt families financially and politically dependent on a government, regardless of which government. It is time sugar belt families ask questions and demand more sensible livelihood investments that will truly help elevate the wellbeing of sugar belt families and communities.
Sincerely,
(Name and Address Withheld)
