The sugar union GAWU yesterday stated that the administration needs to say without further delay when severance payments will be made to thousands of worker laid off at the end of December, arguing that the uncertainty had created despondency and two suicides have occurred.

The Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) said it is deeply saddened to learn that, in recent days, two former sugar workers of the Wales and Rose Hall Estates reportedly took the unfortunate decision to end their lives. The union in a statement said that they seemingly, could not bear the pressures of a “jobless, misery-filled life occasioned by the Government’s infamous plans to close haphazardly a number of sugar estates”.

At Wales, Ramnarase Bissesar ingested what is said to be gramoxone on December 28, 2017. The union said that he was among the 350-odd cane cutters who have been denied illegally his severance pay by the Guyana Sugar Corporation Inc (GuySuCo). GAWU said that it was reliably informed that on the ill-fated day, Bissesar returned home at Inner Stanley-town, West Bank Demerara around 2 pm after he visited some friends and told his wife that he wasn’t sure how he was going to live since he didn’t get his severance payment and he could not secure even part-time work. Soon after, the union said that he went to the upper flat of the house where he ingested the poisonous substance. His wife found him and rushed him to the West Demerara Hospital where he was pronounced dead…..