The GAWU from an article of November 29 titled 3,000+GuySuCo sugar workers to get remaining severance tomorrow appearing on Department of Public Information (DPI) website saw Prime Minister and First Vice President, Moses Nagamootoo as saying “…that those workers from Wales… will receive their severance package”. It seems to the Union, that the PM is either misadvised or, possibly, is engaged in mischief-making. The GAWU wishes to point out that the PM’s utterances are incorrect and are patently mis-leading. On this matter, the Union has been told by GuySuCo that the 375-odd cane cutters of Wales will not be among those who will be paid their severance payments over the coming days.
Regarding this issue, the November 01, Stabroek News had quoted Agriculture Minister, Noel Holder to say that “[a]ll workers will be paid” when he was quizzed about whether the Wales cane cutters would be paid during the October 31 Parliamentary sitting. The article further reports,among other things, that the Minister had indicated previously 251 workers from Wales were to be paid but during the Parliamentary scrutiny of the supplementary appropriation, Minister Holder “…gave an increased number of workers at Wales at 504”. From the Minister’s statement, it seemed, that the cutters would have been paid alas but this unfortunately, at this time, is not the case. It is indeed saddening that the two (2) year anniversary of Wales’ closure will be with us in a few days’time and these workers are being denied their payments though the law is clear on their side. The fact that there is further delay only serves to demonstrate that there are clear attempts to deny the workers what they should rightly receive.
The article next quotes the PM to say “[w]e are not there to deny the sugar workers…”. But this is what exactly the Government did to the beleaguered, now jobless, workers. The ‘pay half and lef half’approach to the workers, lawful, severance pay is in itself a denial. But more than that, the Government by its decisions to close estates has effectively denied workers a livelihood; possibly their children a happy future; denied them realizing their dreams, among so many other denials they have to face now-a-days.
The DPI article goes on to quote Minister of Agriculture, Noel Holder who said “[w]hen the government came to power in May 2015, it didn’t realise the extent to which GuySuCo was in trouble”. Butprior to taking office, the GAWU recalls the Economic Services Committee in 2014, which was then chaired by now Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carl Greenidge, received a full presentation on the state of GuySuCo. We urge the Minister to read the article titled GuySuCo debt at $58B which appeared in the July 14, 2014 Stabroek News. It is,therefore, disingenuous to say that that Government was unaware about the state of the sugar industry.
But more than that, Minister Holder’s colleague Vice President and Minister of Public Security, Khemraj Ramjattan, during a APNU+AFC rally in March, 2015 at Whim,told those in attendance “…as part of taking care of the people we have to ensure that certain industries, the Guyanese economy, are looked after and in Berbice here they are two major ones,the sugar industry and the rice industry and I want to tell you, in the short time I have, that the propaganda you are hearing that the APNU+AFC coalition is going to ground both industries to the ground is all lies. We are not going to in anyway close the sugar industry… we intend brothers and sisters to make that industry profitable again. We have to make it profitable because it is that which creates so much employment directly but indirectly for so many people across this country…”. The GAWU must ask what happened to those commitments the now Minister Ramjattan would have made with the blessing of the APNU+AFC.Is it, as it seems, he was engaged in giving the Guyanese people, more so those connected to the sugar industry, false hope.
Minister Holder is also reported to say that “…GuySuCo employees were among the highest paid in the country with their wages averaging about $200,000 per month”. The GAWU felt that the Minister, given the mountain of evidence that has contradicted this assertion, would have stopped saying something which is most definitely a fallacy.
The attempt by the Government’s propaganda department to seek to put a positive spin on a policy which is clearly anything but positive is, for us, nothing more than a futile attempt to offer a defense for the indefensible. At the end of the day,the Government has put thousands out of work and has not looked back to see how they are fearing in the days, weeks and months since they have been pushed onto the breadline. For a Government that says it is a caring one, this is a most uncaring approach.
