Wales estate workers receive $80M in severance pay
Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo
Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo

WALES estate sugar workers who opted not to continue working following the merger of that estate with Uitvlugt estate earlier this year have received $80.1M in severance pay following the withdrawal of the injunction filed by the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers’ Union (GAWU).

Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo made this disclosure on Friday during the wrap-up of the 2017 budget debates.
GAWU had, on May 6, 2016, filed an injunction blocking the payment, which was to be made by the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo).

Government and the sugar company had decided earlier this year that in view of efforts to restructure the industry, the Wales factory would be merged with Uitvlugt. That decision resulted in widespread criticism from both workers and the unions that represent sugar workers across the country. Notwithstanding the protests, GuySuCo had committed to paying severance to those affected by the merger, but was barred from doing so after GAWU filed an injunction blocking the payment, which was to be made on May 13.

The Prime Minister told the House that the workers met him following the submission of a petition and after several protests, and he noted that after speaking with them, GAWU withdrew the injunction on September 26, 2016.

“On October 14, 2016, ninety-three workers got $80,155,000, and the union went silent,” said Nagamootoo, who accused the union and the PPP of using workers as voting machines who pay “union dues to the labour bureaucrats”.

GuySuCo has been operating at a loss for a number of years, as a result of the world market price for sugar; and as such, a macro approach was taken in relation to the Wales Estate. Billions of dollars have been plugged into the sector, which in the past contributed significantly to the country’s economic stability.

With Government’s decision to close the Wales factory and merge the Wales and Uitvlugt estates, there is hope that the Uitvlugt factory would operate at 100 per cent capacity.

Government had announced that feasibility studies are being conducted in the areas of cattle rearing for dairy purposes, orchard crop cultivation, and aquaculture, to name a few activities proposed to be undertaken at Wales.

And the Prime Minister has addressed insinuations made by the Opposition People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPPC) that it is the intention of the APNU+AFC Coalition Government to cast the sugar industry aside and close all estates.

“They say that this APNU+AFC Government is killing sugar. How do you kill a patient if you inject into the patient $12B in 2015? How do you commit economic genocide if you inject another $11B months after, in 2016? How do you destroy the livelihood of sugar workers if you throw out a new life-line of $9B in 2017?” asked the Prime Minister, who asserted that his administration is not anti-sugar.

Prime Minister Nagamootoo described the coalition Administration as a “caring doctor” who continues to “treat the sugar patient, “which we found shackled to a death bed with an $85B debt chain”, allocating $32B to that patient’s care.

Instead of criticising Government’s push to diversify the industry, the Prime Minister said, the opposition should have proffered suggestions that would ensure the advancement of the industry.

“Now, same story: not a single suggestion or new ways!” declared the Prime Minister amidst loud thumping of desks from the Government side of the House.

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