–repeats call for detailed account of expenditure

PRESIDENT Donald Ramotar has as good as said that the government consistently puts its money where its mouth is where the sugar industry is concerned, to the extent that whatever monetary intervention it makes by far exceeds that of the European Union. 

“The Government has been supporting this industry for many, many years. As far as the European Union money is concerned, let me say that the monies that the Government puts into the sugar industry is more than the

monies that we get from the European Union for the sugar industry,” Mr. Ramotar said Monday night at a rally marking the 66th death anniversary of the five Enmore Martyrs, who laid down their lives so that their colleagues in the sugar industry could enjoy better working conditions. .
But President of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU), Komal Chand, while not disputing the fact that the government does help the industry financially, is calling for a detailed account of how the EU money is spent, so as to judge for himself if what the President is saying is true.

“We stand by what we have said before,” he said. “We want the Ministry of Agriculture to release the account of what they got from the EU each year, and how much of that was actually put into GuySuCo (Guyana Sugar Corporation). The matter of the Government investment being more than the EU support would be established as fact, once the account is released,” he told the Guyana Chronicle yesterday.
Noting that the industry has a right to benefit from “the full release” of the EU monies intended for the industry, Chand is contending that it only gets a portion of it, which is used to do such things as help finance the Enmore Packaging Plant and augment budgetary support.
In a prior public statement, Chand had reported that there are records to show that the EU funding, which started in 2007, saw Guyana receiving €91.5M (the equivalent of G$21.5B) between 2007 and 2011; and €45M (the equivlent of G$10B) between 2012 and 2013, which brings total disbursement to €136.5M.

But according to Agriculture Minister, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy’s calculation, that final figure might be some €26.4M off, as back in April this year, during the 2014 Budget debates, he was quoted as saying he was willing to justify and verify the expenditure of the €110.1M provided by the European Union (EU) to support the ailing sugar industry.
“I am inviting GAWU to a meeting to discuss the matter, and clear up any misunderstanding that they might have. I am certain that GAWU will be satisfied that the Government of Guyana has surpassed sums from the EU as payments to GuySuCo,” he had said at the time.
To justify this argument, Dr. Ramsammy had said that the government had transferred a total of US$195M to GuySuCo between 2005 and 2013 to render support to its various restructuring and turnaround initiatives, thereby supplementing the amount injected by the EU.
Sugar production last year saw a 14.4 per cent contraction to 186,770 tonnes of sugar. Also in 2013, Guyana’s sugar export accounted for 8.3 per cent of total exports valued at US$112.2M. The industry, according to the Finance Minister, managed to contribute 3.9 per cent of the GDP for that year as the sector remains the largest employer.

(By Vanessa Narine)