More PPP/C deception and selfishness

Dear Editor,
HERE is another big PPP/C lie about the sugar industry aired via TVG 28 on April 28, one of the party’s support stations; a further attempt at evading and whitewashing the injurious mess that their self -serving politics caused on a once mighty industry that has led to the David Granger administration having to make very radical changes in attempts at re-positioning the entity.

You have guessed right: the threesome, comprising Anil Nandlall, Juan Edghill, and Gail Teixeira, up to their usual lies and mischief during a recent visit to the West Coast of Demerara, to distribute what appears to be hampers to some laid-off sugar workers.

It is a basic rule of business that once an entity begins to lose its profitability over a period of time, and shows no immediate sign of returning to such viability, serious decisions as to its future existence have to be taken. No astute businessperson will continue to pour hard-earned dollars into an entity that would have accumulated such a massive debt, as the reported $82M that hangs around the neck of GuySuCo.

Such had been the declining state of GuySuCo’s production affairs for many years, known by the former PPP/C administration, but not much by the people of Guyana.

We all can recall the cry of “GuySuCo is broke’’, uttered by its then chairperson, in May, 2015. The new government immediately responded with a multi-billion-dollar injection, to keep the entity going, no doubt with the thousands of sugar workers and their immediate families’ welfare in mind. To date, this injection of funds has totalled some $32M.

In a section of Nandlall’s discourse to the gathering, he said that government reported that they had given the latter sum to the industry, “so deh seh”, to quote his creolese, for keeping the industry afloat. This “so deh seh’’ is a subtlety meant to create the perception of misinformation, or deception on the part of the government.

He further opined that such a sum could have kept all of the terminated sugar workers on the job. This means profitability or not, the sugar workers should have been employed continuously, because they are a critical block of PPP/C political support.

Immediately editor, this is the jumbie economics mindset of a party whose only interest in the workers was that they be continuously employed for political purposes of support for the PPP/C. This would have been in defiance of the reality of the grave financial crises that the entire sugar industry continues to encounter.

In plain PPP/C, cold, and dangerously selfish terms, it meant the continuous allocation of scarce taxpayers’ money into an industry that had passed economic life-support stage, but had to be kept breathing because of the risk of losing political support for such a party.
This is the ugly dishonesty that continues to permeate PPP/C statements to its constituents in the sugar industry, primarily designed to whip up racist fears and economic insecurities – all in the name of seeking a return to political power.

What contribution have they offered to the attempts at restructuring an industry which still means a lot to those hardworking sugar workers, who have been made to suffer great emotional discomfort because of the political gangsterism of that infernal cabal in Robb Street?

In this vein, they would seem to have silenced the efforts of Komal Chand who, although complicit in the collapse of the industry, decided that he will shoulder the responsibilities as leader of his Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union, in working with the government for a solution that will be of benefit not only to what will remain of the industry, but also to those workers whose services will be retained.

Shamelessly, Bharrat Jagdeo attacked Chand for his efforts, describing such as offering PR opportunities to the government. How can such a blinkered, asinine view be taken, when such a vital industry is at stake, demanding all the inputs from all stakeholders for a solution? But that is the level of political leadership and calibre of an opposition leader whose only desperate refrain is to maintain political control of an industry that he and party colleagues have brought to its knees.

I will always maintain that GuySuCo and its circumstances are the premier examples of PPP/C deception, deviousness, misinformation, high-tech crookishness and incompetence, coupled with political debauchery. These attributes were once again demonstrated by the unholy trio of Nandlall, Edghill, and Teixeira during their visit to Wales in Region Three.
Regards,
Earl Hamilton

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