The GAWU, a few hours after it issued a statement on January 14 regarding President David Granger’s non-response to a follow-up letter to enquire about the status of the sugar workers petition, received a correspondence dated January 13 signed by the President’s secretary. Through the correspondence, the GAWU and by extension the sugar workers have been informed that the President has referred the matter to Minister of Agriculture, Noel Holder.
The President’s secretary has advised that the Union will hear from the Minister of Agriculture on the matter. We note with interest that the President chose to reply through his secretary which no doubt, in our view, says a lot about the regard he has for the workers petition. The GAWU, on several occasions, have pointed to the glaring lack of concern the Coalition Administration has for the sugar industry.
This is not the first time that correspondences addressed to the President have not been frontally addressed by him but is referred to one of his Ministers. While Mr Granger obviously can decide how to address a matter, our experience has been that matters referred to other Ministers by the President are hardly ever addressed, at least positively. Of course, we believe that the President could have fully addressed the matter as we are aware that he has been presented with proposals from the GuySuCo regarding the pay rise matter. The fact that he has chosen to take the focus away from him is a mouthful in itself.
At this time, we hardly have any hope that the Minister of Agriculture would address the matter. We say so after we saw in the January 14, Guyana Times that the Minister, from all appearances, has began to pack up his desk and he seems eager to head out the door. In addition to that, we have seen a GuySuCo report wherein the CEO advised the Board that “…the Corporation is working closely with the Minister of Agriculture to arrive at a solution to the Corporation’s cash flow problems and the Corporation was assured that there would be some relief which would stem from discussions with the Ministers of Finance and H.E. the President.” The CEO went on to share the view “…that the Corporation had to do something in order to survive”. The utterances of the CEO were made since October, 2019 and the GAWU is aware that as recent as Christmas Eve 2019 the matter remained unaddressed. We are unsure, at this time, of the present status but, we believe, that the status quo prevails as the Corporation has yet to re-engage the Union and we read recently the Corporation’s CEO was on leave and out of the jurisdiction.
From our perspective, the current caretaker Government of Guyana has no intention to assist the sugar workers who have not benefitted from any rise in pay since the Coalition took office. It is saddening to see the workers being treated with such derision especially when senior actors in the Coalition had promised them not only to preserve their jobs but to approve substantial pay hikes in the region of 20 per cent. Rather than a 20 per cent hike in pay, the workers real and nominal wages, over the period, have probably declined by over 20 per cent as they must contend with reduced benefits, lesser work weeks and massive jumps in the cost-of-living which have heavily impacted them and their family. The lack of compassion by the APNU+AFC Government is a clear indicator of the beast we are dealing with.
