The various interventions in and subsidies made to the sugar industry over recent years have bolstered somewhat the criticality in the sector as the struggle to restore its viability and profitability continues.The Government and GuySuCo have managed to avert an impending wages and salaries crisis, even as it was revealed that the company is unable to account for $154M of employees’ savings, impelling the instruction of a cease/desist order on deductions by the representative union until this situation could be resolved.

The crisis that threatened a shut-down in the nation’s sugar belt has been averted in the short-term following a meeting yesterday with newly appointed Minister of Agriculture, Noel Holder, and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) Dr Rajendra Singh, over the possible failure to pay wages in the near future, with a compromise that has to soon be resolved in order to establish long-term solutions.

The explanations provided by GuySuCo to Agriculture Minister Holder seem, at first glance, to have credibility, according to the minister. However, a more durable solution would have to be realised at Cabinet level after more detailed information is provided to the Government by the company.

But the reality is that, in a developing country where jobs are already in short supply, it is improbable that any responsible government would not seek to sustain an industry that directly provides in excess of 30,000 jobs – and scores more indirectly, because even the humble sugar cake vendor owes her living to the sugar industry.

This newspaper reported that, as an adjunct to the deleterious situation in the industry, it was revealed that the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) Co-operative Credit Union Society Limited also announced to its members that it has requested GuySuCo to cease deductions from workers’ earnings and credit union savings, effective yesterday.
The report stated that, “The Society’s regrettable, but unavoidable, decision is occasioned by GuySuCo not remitting workers’ savings to the credit union, contrary to the extant agreement between the credit union and the corporation,” according to GAWU, which claimed that GuySuCo is now unable to account for in excess of $154M
According to the union body, as at the end of April, 2015, the corporation failed to provide the sum of$154,410,525, which it says “represents workers’ savings for five months.

As such, the credit union is now unable to continue to facilitate savers’ withdrawals in light of the non-payment of the workers’ savings by the corporation in accordance with the relevant agreement.

“Additionally, the credit union has taken consideration of the fact that it is now unable to secure further loans to satisfy savers’ withdrawals.”

Workers should not have to pay penalties for mistakes made by incompetent managers, especially in the sugar industry, where employees already are at a disadvantage in terms of their wages and conditions of work – occasioned by years-long deterioration in the viability of the sector.
If this impasse is not resolved earliest then, the looming threat of closure of this vital sector would actualise involuntarily, sending the nation’s economy in a tailspin.

It is to be hoped that the powers-that-be recognise that sugar is too big to fail and avert the impending disaster. However, this consideration needs to be balanced against the extant state of the nation’s economy, because infusing the billions needed to subsidise the sector could also become counter-productive and a severely unsustainable drain on the country’s fiscal wherewithal.