National Cane Farmers Conference
about to commence
at the Arthur Chung Convention Centre.
Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo
to deliver the feature address.
HAPPENING NOW:
Agriculture Minister Noel Holder delivering the welcome address.
In addition to Prime Minister and Minister Holder,
Vice Presidents Khemraj Ramjattan and Sydney Allicock
and ministers Joseph Harmon, Dominic Gaskin,
Jaipaul Sharma, Dr. Karen Cummings, Simona Broomes,
Dawn Hastings and Keith Scott
are in attendance at the National Cane Farmers Conference.
Minister Holder has announced that the government
is looking at releasing land
which have been abandoned by GuySuCo.
These lands can be utilized by private farmers
to grow sugar cane.
Prime Minister Nagamootoo commends Minister Holder
for being the architect of the
National Cane Farmers Conference
and presents him with a gift.
- Prime Minister Nagamootoo
commences his feature address at the
National Cane Farmers Conference.
"In the old days, it was called “King Sugar”.
Later, it was re-named “Bitter Sugar”.
Today, sugar is no longer king.
It has been reduced to the state of a pauper,
a beggar that lives off handouts from the state.
This year, within days of the
new APNU+AFC Coalition taking office,
we gave the sugar industry a $4billion bail out
after we discovered
that not a cent was left with GuySuCo
to pay wages to sugar workers.
In the past two years,
Parliament authorized some $17 billion
to be transferred to this Corporation
whose leadership we diagnosed and we understood
in the past brought the industry to its knees.
The industry now badly needs
an additional $12 billion."
"Even at this hard, “bangaseed” time,
this Government will not allow the sugar industry to sink."
- Prime Minister Nagamootoo at National Cane Farmers Conference
"We need to cast out the political dead weights
whose mis-management has brought us to the point
where we were forced to appoint a Commission of Inquiry,
into the operations of Guysuco.
We have since also appoint a new Board of Directors for Guysuco. Hopefully, we can find answers
that could help the industry to move forward,
one such answer being
why has the Skeldon Factory
on which over
$47 billion was spent,
failed!
These answers are also important
to cane farmers since,
to paraphrase an old saying,
“when Guysuco sneezes,
cane farmers catch a cold.”
- Prime Minister Nagamootoo at the National Cane Farmers Conference
"There should be no discussion or debate regarding
the importance of the sugar industry to Guyana’s economy.
It should be noted,
and in fact we have said this on a number occasions,
that.....
this Government sees sugar as
“too big to fail”
- Prime Minister Nagamootoo at the National Cane Farmers Conference.
"It is no secret that the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo)
contributes significantly to the country's economy
and society to such an extent
that national economic fortunes
are inextricably linked
with that of the sugar industry
and as such we will ensure it doesn’t fail."
- Prime Minister Nagamootoo at the National Cane Farmers Conference
"Sugar is about the economy.
It is a big foreign currency earner.
It is still a big source for job creation
for many
and as such it is not something to dissolve."
- Prime Minister Nagamootoo at the National Cane Farmers Conference
"You can rest assured
as you leave here today,
that you will not be unemployed.
Jamaica scaled back.
Barbados went out of sugar.
Trinidad and Tobago went out of sugar.
St. Kitts went out of production.
Our cost of production is high;
but despite this,
we still have hope that the industry
would improve
and eventually succeed."
- Prime Minister Nagamootoo at the National Cane Farmers Conference
"We will also look at making more lands available to cane farmers."
- Prime Minister Nagamootoo at the National Cane Farmers Conference
"I ask for the respective Ministers with portfolio
for Agriculture, Finance, Business and Cooperatives
to enact appropriate legislation to protect
and support private cane farming in Guyana,
so that you, cane farmers,
can provide for yourselves and your families
through enhanced earnings from cane farming." -
Prime Minister Nagamootoo as he officially declare
the first ever National Cane Farmers Conference open.
