MR. Stanley Ming’s call to close the sugar industry is another wild, vile and wicked attack on the sugar industry and those who work in the industry. But this call is also an anti-Guyana call. The only persons who will support the call for closure of the sugar industry are those who have no idea on the importance of sugar in the fabric of the development story of our country. Mr. Ming was unequivocally out of his league when he attempted to talk about sugar. As Minister of Agriculture, I am deeply disturbed because the Opposition uses people like Mr. Ming to sound out their position on political matters. Today, I am demanding that APNU+AFC state their position on sugar. They must not speak with forked tongues – they must be clear to the Guyanese people and to the sugar workers. When APNU+AFC refused to provide vital support to GuySuCo, they showed disdain to the sugar workers and they betrayed Guyana. Today, it is another chance for them to be clear – will you close the sugar industry? Are you willing to say Tony Vieira previously, and now Stanley Ming do not represent the position of APNU+AFC?
No “ands, ifs or buts”. We want a clear answer. The PPP/C will do whatever is necessary to ensure that sugar sustains its importance in Guyana and we will expand sugar for it to continue to play a crucial role in Guyana’s economy and social welfare development. We will invest whatever we need to ensure a strong sugar industry. The PPP/C has no “ands, if, and buts” when it comes to the sugar industry.
The PPP/C continues to treat sugar as an indispensable part of the economy and social welfare of our people. We see sugar as “too big to fail”, a position taken by Cheddi Jagan, Bharat Jagdeo, Donald Ramotar and various Ministers of Agriculture of the PPP/C. Throughout my tenure as Minister of Agriculture, during one of the very difficult periods for the sugar industry, as it tries to position itself against global circumstances unfavourable for sugar, I have maintained a position consistent with the PPP/C’s position – we must take all initiatives and facilitate the sustainability and expansion of sugar in Guyana.
APNU in March 2014 held a press conference hosted by Mr. Joe Harmon and Mr. Tony Vieira. At that Press Conference hosted at APNU’s headquarters, Mr. Vieira insisted that the only sensible thing to do is close the sugar industry. Today, almost exactly one year later, another activist of APNU, Mr. Stanley Ming, a former PNC MP, again reiterates the call to close the industry.
Mr. Granger and APNU never disassociated themselves from the call to close sugar that was made at its Press Conference on March 8, 2014. Mr. Ramjattan on March 9th or so in 2014 also gave full support to the call made at the APNU press conference then.
At the 2014 budget debate, I raised the issue and called on APNU and AFC to give a definitive position on the call to close the sugar industry. Neither party heeded my call and ignored my request for them to tell us during the budget debate if they wanted to close the industry. But APNU voted against a PPP/C budget provision to support the sugar industry. AFC abstained from that vote, playing politics, but the AFC never disassociated itself from Ramjattan’s support of the call made at the APNU press conference to close sugar. They buckled under pressure that they will have to explain to the sugar workers and in the end they abstained from voting against the budgetary provision for sugar.
At the luncheon meeting the Private Sector hosted for Granger to present APNU+AFC vision for Guyana about two weeks ago, Granger stated that “sugar was too big to fail”. This is what the PPP/C has stated since 1992. We have supported and facilitated the sugar industry as the industry first had to recover from the destruction caused by the PNC and throughout this period the PPP/C had to facilitate the industry’s response to global changes, including the European’s betrayal of the sugar protocol and the falling sugar prices that saw sometimes prices falling by 50%.
The PPP/C’s position has always been very clear and unambiguous – sugar is too big to fail. We are encouraged that Granger now says that he agrees with our position. But he was leader of the PNC and APNU when a call was made to close the industry at one of its weekly press conferences. During the budget debate 2014, he led the Opposition’s response in Parliament. He never once disassociated himself from those statements. Now that Ming has raised the possibility again, what is APNU’s position?
When APNU came with its wild assault on our country, on sugar workers and on the sugar industry by demanding that we end sugar and grow tilapia in the sugar cane fields, none of the APNU MPs stated that that was not their position and Ramjattan stated he agreed with the call. There is documented evidence to support what I am stating.
As the PPP/C Minister of Agriculture, let me state that we will continue to build the sugar industry to be a lead industry in our country and we will work with the sugar workers to ensure that their industry continues to provide employment and economic and social gains for our people and our country.
Let me be unequivocally clear – Ming’s call to close the sugar industry is DEAD WRONG. It was dead wrong when APNU called for the closure last March and it is dead wrong now. APNU’s plan to close the sugar industry is wicked and it is a plan of a party that has no moral right to even ask the people for the right to be the Government of Guyana one day.
At the press conference March 2014, APNU talked about an exchange – replace sugar with tilapia. Ming in 2015 has not stated that sugar should be replaced with tilapia, but also wants Guyana to replace sugar with other economic activities. Such other economic activities are already being pursued by the PPP/C, but not to replace sugar. The position of the PPP/C is that sugar must be sustained and expanded and other activities are additive.
When APNU, through its spokespersons, Mr. Joe Harmon, a front bench MP for APNU, and Mr. Anthony Vieira, a former front bench PNC MP, at its official APNU Media Conference, called for the closure of GuySuCo in March 2014, it exposed itself of wanting to destroy an important industry in Guyana. Unfortunately, it was not the first time that APNU had called for the closure of the sugar industry. In 2013, Mr. Anthony Vieira first described the plan to replace sugar with tilapia.
Now the call is reiterated by Mr. Ming and it is incumbent on APNU+AFC to declare their position, notwithstanding Mr. Granger’s statement recently that “sugar is too big to fail”.
Sugar workers realised that Granger was playing to the gallery when he declared ‘sugar is too big to fail’. He knows that he needs to fool the sugar workers. APNU and its main partner, the PNC, have a history of being against the sugar industry and the sugar workers since they view the sugar industry as a stronghold of the PPP/C and they have always been anti-sugar workers. They play politics with the sugar industry, instead of protecting the interests of our country and our people. They speak from both sides of their mouths.
The truth is that there is a long history of the PNC and now APNU pursuing policies and practices that have been and are anti-sugar workers. I am certain that they will close the industry if they have a chance. Mr. Vieira and Mr. Ming are merely sound bites of the real PNC and AFC. I reject this notion and I reject this plan. I vehemently reject the position of APNU, not only as the Minister of Agriculture, but as a citizen of Guyana.
The present assault on the sugar industry is reminiscent of the assault on the industry by the PNC Government in the late 1980s when they began the preparation to privatise the sugar industry. It’s an ugly truth that Mr. Harmon, Mr. Vieira, Mr. Greenidge and others in APNU and AFC want the nation to ignore and forget, but Vieira and Ming are reminding Guyanese of the people who have always wanted to close sugar.
In order to complete the privatisation of the industry, the PNC Government in 1989 gave Bookers-Tate an expensive management contract to manage the industry and prepare it for divestment under a World Bank/IMF Economic Reconstruction Program (ERP). This preposterous plan in the late 1980s by the PNC is now surpassed by the idiocy of their present plan to replace sugar with tilapia or with something else, as presented by Vieira and Ming.
The truth is each time the PPP/C try to financially support GuySuCo, they have tried to stop our efforts. Yet they have the audacity to say the PPP/C Government has starved the industry. Indeed, the PPP/C Government has provided more financial support to the industry than the EU has provided in budgetary support on the Supporting Action for Sugar. Incidentally, APNU is on record of calling on the EU to withhold the sugar funds.
The PNC inherited a sugar industry which in the 1960s, routinely produced more than 300,000 tonnes of sugar. But this production efficiency began to deteriorate and production fell to a low of 131,999 tonnes by 1991. The PNC cannot deny or hide the truth: they took the resources of the sugar industry and squandered it on failed ventures and mismanagement. The PNC’s sugar levy raped the industry and left it as a failed industry by 1991.
The PPP/C Government ended all efforts to privatise the industry. We ended any thought of closing the Demerara Sugar Estates, one of the goals of the privatisation efforts. Under the PPP/C Government, production increased from the 131,000 tonnes in 1991 to surpass 300,000 tonnes by 2002.
Under the PPP/C Government, we have restored production and have surpassed 250,000 tonnes 13 times in the last 20 years, and three times surpassed 300,000 tonnes. But we knew production above 300,000 tonnes could not be sustained unless critical reconfiguration of the sugar industry is undertaken. We have been doing such reconfiguration and this still requires more time. But the reconfiguration will prepare GuySuCo to again routinely produce more than 300,000 tonnes and to reach 400,000 tonnes by 2020.
New circumstances, such as reduced sugar price, climate change, dwindling labour pools, more expensive equipment and supplies, etc., that the sugar industry faced in the 1990s and up to now have killed many sugar industries around the world. In CARICOM, St. Kitts, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago have all ended sugar. Jamaica, Cuba and other countries have down-sized sugar.
In Guyana, we face the same enormous challenges. But instead of lamenting the changing circumstances and being overwhelmed, we have boldly embraced the challenges and seized opportunities. The experience has been painful and the set-backs frustrating. But we have also not been devoured by confronting the challenges.
The truth is there is a silver lining and we will succeed in reaching our goal and sustaining production at over 400,000 tonnes per year. The success of sugar in the future has nothing to do with the gloom and doom of the enemies of the industry, but depend on our most valuable asset – those persons who toil day by day in the sugar industry, the employees of GuySuCo.
In these difficult times, when challenges seem more than opportunities, some may feel the need to savagely attack our efforts. But the workers and managers have been sticking to the task at hand – reconfiguration of the industry for another century of leading the economic growth of Guyana.
I am, therefore, offended by the call by Ming to close the sugar industry and I call on all Guyanese, particularly those in the sugar estates, to reject this call. But this is an opportune time for APNU+AFC to join us and give our country a chance to sustain a crucial industry. Let us declare together in solidarity that we will NEVER CLOSE THE SUGAR INDUSTRY OF GUYANA.
I salute the workers of Guyana and I salute the young Guyanese who, with deficits in experience, but with a strong sense of commitment, have been managing the industry in these difficult times. Make no mistake though that our best days are ahead of us, and sugar, like it did before, will secure a beautiful and sweet future for Guyana and Guyanese.
DR. LESLIE RAMSAMMY
MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE