Sugar is dead
Kaieteur News â The G$250,000 grant per sugar worker in Skeldon was a farewell gift. Some of the sugar workers may have felt that it was a grant from a caring government; little did they know that it was sounding the last rites for that estate.
The government has bitten off more than it can chew. During the elections campaign, the PPP/C promised to reopen the sugar estates closed by the APNU+AFC, namely Skeldon, Canje and Enmore.
It always knew that it could never reopen Wales given the dismantling of the sugar factory there. But so far none of the closed states have been reopened.
Skeldon is a dead duck. This was the site of the greatest catastrophe in the history of the sugar industry: the construction of that monstrous white elephant known as the Skeldon Sugar Factory. That entire project should have been subject to a Commission of Inquiry. It may have ended the political career of one PPP/C big wig.
The government has now decided that Enmore cannot be reopened. It has leased the factory and moved the packaging plant to Albion. Enmore is now being touted as an industrial centre, just as Wales is.
The displaced Enmore sugar workers do not need to be told that sugar is now off of the radar for them. They know that the sugar industry in East Demerara is now dead and buried.
So too it seems at Skeldon. The grant which was paid to sugar workers should be treated as a redeployment grant. The sugar industry in Skeldon will not be reopened. There is no investor and the government does not have the money or the confidence in the future of the industry to risk reopening Skeldon.
Canje is likely to be reopened next year. But that will require significant investments. What it means is that most of the sugar production is going to be concentrated in the East Berbice estates.
But that in itself is a major risk. When the APNU+AFC sent home over 7,000 sugar workers, these workers resigned themselves to a fate without sugar. Albion and Blairmont were kept open but the production is not there and the workers are no longer around; they have moved on.
Even if the monies could be found to reopen the closed sugar estates, the workforce is not going to be there. At present both Albion and Blairmont are struggling to find workers. Workers are not going to be found to optimise production at the working estates, much less to reopen the closed ones.
Sugar is dead. It was terminally sick under the Jagdeo administration. It was left to the APNU+AFC to simply administer the last rites. The Coalition did so in a heartless manner and for this it suffered a loss at the 2020 elections.
But the PPP/C is in no position to resurrect the industry. The PPP/C therefore has to look at other options to create employment in the sugar belt.
The most viable is food production. The idea has long been touted of Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) being a food production company. This idea should be developed especially since the President is now hyped on food security.
The Ministry of Agriculture is harvesting swamp shrimps. This is a high-priced commodity which fetches anywhere between $9,000 per bucket to $40,000 per bucket. The majority of the locally grown swamp shrimp is sent overseas. Guyanese who live in the dispora love this shrimp which when fried turns red. There is therefore a ready market for any amount of swamp shrimp which can be produced.
However, instead of allowing GuySuCo to develop the ponds and grow these shrimps, the swamp shrimp project has been handed to the private sector. But it is a lucrative commodity which can help create employment in the sugar belt and earn income for workers.
We are told that government is also keen on bringing black belly sheep to Guyana. This too can be another lucrative investment for GuySuCo.
GuySuCo has all the lands and waterways necessary to become a major food producer. But those who defend bourgeois interest would not wish for these commodities to be put into the hands of state workers. If the PPP/C, however, was really seriously about helping the displaced sugar workers, it would put the vast acreages to work rather than taking GuySuCo lands for housing and commercial development.
