… President promises to allocate state lands to former sugar workers
… to set up State Land Resettlement Commission to coordinate programme 

A STATE Land Resettlement Commission will be established, should the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) coalition be re-elected to office, to address the needs of former sugar workers, who were displaced as a result of government’s decision to “right size” the sugar industry in its quest to make it viable.

This commitment was made by President David Granger – the APNU+AFC Presidential Candidate – as he addressed a multitude of supporters at the Leonora Athletics Stadium during the coalition’s elections rally at Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara) on Friday.

“We are going to set up a State Land Resettlement Commission so that sugar workers would be able to go onto those lands and those who want to farm, will be able to farm, and those who want housing, will get land for housing. This is what a caring government does,” he told the thousands of supporters gathered in the stadium.

In 2017, the APNU+AFC Administration took a decision to consolidate cultivation at the Albion, Blairmont and Uitvlugt Estates. In an attempt to reduce losses and increase profitability within sugar industry, the government, in 2018, amalgamated [merge] the Wales Estate with the Uitvlugt Estate and reassign its cane to the Uitvlugt Factory. The estates at Albion and Rose Hall were also amalgamated.
Under the new construct, there are three estates and factories, Blairmont on the West Bank Berbice, Albion-Rose Hall in East Berbice and the Uitvlugt-Wales estate in West Demerara. By virtue of the amalgamation, the Enmore Factory on the East Coast Demerara (ECD) was also closed.

NO EASY DECISION
The decision to amalgamate the estates, the President said, was not an easy one.  “I am telling you, we had to make a hard decision but we thought hard and long and we said we must protect and preserve the sugar industry,” he said.

In justifying the government’s decision, President Granger explained that the cost of production had superseded the profit garnered, as such, the sugar industry was on the decline. It was a tough decision, he iterated, but necessary to increase the profitability of the industry.

“Sugar cannot be sold on the world market at the cost that it was being produced at Wales, but we did not throw Wales under the bus, we amalgamated Wales and Uitvlugt and many of the people from Wales have gotten jobs from Uitvlugt,” President Granger explained.

The establishment of the State Land Resettlement Commission, he said, will provide another avenue for income generation for those affected. “We are going to establish a State Land Resettlement Commission so that people who have been put out of work because they had been in the sugar plantations will be given access to land so that they can start all over again,” he further assured.

In 2019, the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) sold some 92,246 tonnes of sugar on the local, regional and international markets. GuySuCo said despite a number of challenges, the three operational estates, at Albion, Blairmont and Uitvlugt, produced a total of 90,246 tonnes of sugar in 2019.
According to GuySuCo, 46,651 tonnes were produced at Albion Estate, 23,325 tonnes at Blairmont Estate and 20,270 tonnes at the Uitvlugt Estate.

JOB LOST UNDER PPP
Under the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), more than 5,000 sugar workers attached to GuySuCo lost their jobs between 1992 and 2015, President Granger reported.

EDUCATION
Turning his attention to the Education Sector, in addition to the construction of schools and dormitories, 40 buses, 20,000 bicycles and a dozen boats were given to communities under the Five Bs initiative to ensure that children attend school.
As the country embarks on a Decade of Development – 2020-2029, he said his government will provide a special Public Education Assistant Scheme Grant to families, whose children are in school. “That is where the oil money is going to go,” he told the supporters to loud cheers.

The establishment of A State Land Resettlement Commission and the provision of a special Public Education Assistant Scheme Grant were among three promises made by the President to the people of Guyana on Friday.

“We will abolish squatting settlements; we will put our workers onto the lands and we will put our children into schools. We care for workers, we care for children and we care for families. APNU+AFC is a caring Government,” he told his supporters.

Anticipating a landslide victory when Guyanese go to the polls on Monday, March 2, 2020, President Granger said the PPP/C has been losing support since 1997, and the situation further deteriorated under Bharrat Jagdeo.

“Since Jagdeo took over the PPP, all of the scores are falling in Region Two, in Region Three, in Region Five and Region Six – that is what the Mathematics tell you.” He urged the region to throw their support, overwhelming, behind the APNU+AFC coalition.