APNU+AFC’s Prime Ministerial candidate Moses Nagamootoo says while diversification is important to save the sugar industry it must be done in a manner to ensure that workers on the 16,000-strong payroll are not put out of work

He pledged that should the coalition win the May 11 general elections all efforts would be made to ensure the longevity of the industry.

Decrying the years of what he described as political domination and inefficient management much to the detriment of the industry, Nagamootoo said efficiency needs to be improved and all the “frills and the waste” should be cut out.

In an interview with this newspaper on Thursday, Nagamootoo, recommended that some of the industry’s land should be turned over to private investors for them to engage in cane farming and supply to the factories. Value-added products such as molasses, rum and ethanol should be made and markets for these products identified.

One of the arguments being used by the PPP/C is that should the coalition be voted into power the industry would be dead. Fuel is being added to this position by statements Nagamootoo’s presidential running mate, David Granger had made in 2011 saying that he felt that privatizing of the sugar industry was the way to go as it would offer private cane farmers an opportunity to boost production and decrease state focus in an industry which requires people with technical expertise and entrepreneurial skills.

At the time-2011-he was speaking at a luncheon organised by the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association.

However, he later clarified to this newspaper that he was not saying; “…let us throw the industry to the wolves and/or for the state to turn its back on sugar, the idea is that people with the necessary expertise in this area, particularly as it relates to sugarcane production, should be allowed to manage the affairs of the industry and not the state or political operatives sitting on a board.”

Nagamootoo said while the industry is in a crisis it is solely because the PPP/C government has been mismanaging its operations.

“There are many aspects to the diversification but the idea is to not kill the sugar industry, and the sugar industry is not being killed by the incompetence of the workers, they are hardworking people…it is not being killed because of the inactivity of the union, it is being killed by the inefficiency and mismanagement of the bureaucracy led by the PPP, led by the Jagdeo/Ramotar clique, that is where they have ripped the heart out of the sugar industry,” Nagamootoo said.

Nagamootoo pointed out that the sugar industry has been facing a bleak future for a very long time where the production cost of sugar is higher than what it is sold for. The problem exists because the government felt it could modernize the sugar industry and took billions in the famous ‘Jagdeo fix’ to modernize the Skeldon factory but what went on was “quackery” and the money went down the drain.

“You have a problem in the industry that is caused by political domination and direction by inefficient management,” Nagamootoo said, adding that individuals are being rewarded for the latter, referring to GuySuCo’s CEO Raj Singh being recently named on the PPP/C’s electoral list.

Minister of Labour, Dr Nanda Gopaul was also the chairman of the corporation’s board and according to Nagamootoo the corporation went into insolvency and near bankruptcy and yet he was made a minister.

He said that President Donald Ramotar was also a member of the board who helped to “rip the heart out of the industry” and that he was part of the trio-which also included Jagdeo and Gopaul-who threatened to derecognize the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) as the workers’ representative in 2010. This move, he said, was to inhibit the workers from fighting for wage increases and bonuses and better working conditions.

Nagamootoo said he was the lone person who stood up to that threat and when he walked out of a meeting on it he was threatened with expulsion because he wrote a letter asking for a candle to be lit for sugar workers.

“That was the occasion on which I left the PPP because there was a conspiracy against the sugar industry and the sugar workers,” he said.

And he said during his 12-year tenure, former President Bharrat Jagdeo bludgeoned the trade union movement. He said the workers and the trade unions need to be empowered.

”But since Jagdeo came in power labour has gone into a pause, the struggle has gone into a pause,” Nagamootoo said.