–but proposes no alternative

OPPOSITION Leader Bharrat Jagdeo has told dozens of Wales Sugar Estate workers on Tuesday that the Peoples Progressive Party (PPP) “vociferously opposes” the closure of the estate, and the Opposition is prepared to meet with the Government to get it to rethink that decision.Jagdeo led a group of party officials to Wales on the West Bank of Demerara yesterday after Government had, the day before, announced the closure of the factory, and accused the Government of fulfilling a political objective by its announcement.
Speaking from microphones mounted atop a truck, Jagdeo addressed a vocal crowd of dozens of workers at Wales, and promised the PPP will go to great lengths to ensure that the estate survives.
“What is going to happen when Wales is closed? Just imagine, all those private cane farmers will also have to probably shut down their farms,” he told the vocal gathering.
Mr Jagdeo said that transporting canes to the Uitvlugt Estate — Government’s alternative for the canes — will be uneconomical, and he questioned whether the administration has plans in place for substitute employment for workers.
Government had invited the PPP to sit on the GuySuCo Board, but the party turned down the offer.
According to Mr Jagdeo, the party “knew that the Board would have made decisions not related to the industry”. He alleged that the closure of Wales was made at the level of Cabinet.
“So we are not participating in those sorts of things,” he said.
Yesterday’s gathering included dozens of cane harvesters, planters and factory staff. They lined the road at Wales in the busy traffic to listen to the Opposition Members of Parliament.
Cane harvester Ramnaresh Mangru said many persons will need to find other means of earning an income if the estate is closed, while Tool room attendant Faizsul Bacchus told the Guyana Chronicle that a previous manager at the estate, one Mr Gafoor, had said several years ago that the estate would close by 2018, given its woes over the years.
Mr Bacchus has been working at Wales since 1973. He said the 1500 workers at the estate will be affected, but he is looking forward to the discussions with the sugar corporation as it moves ahead with plans for the estate.
With announcement of the imminent closure of Wales estate, many workers are now thinking of their severance package.
Government, on Monday, announced closure of the Wales Estate, which is projected to lose between $1.6B and $1.9B this year. The announcement said the estate requires extensive repairs to remain operable after years of neglect.

Analysis
If Government proceeds with closure of the Wales Sugar Estate, it will be the second estate to be closed in the past six years. The Diamond Estate was closed in 2010, and the Enmore Factory was closed the following year. Both were closed under the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Administration under the leadership of Presidents Bharrat Jagdeo and Donald Ramotar.
On both occasions, as had been widely reported in the press, workers at those estates were not adequately informed about the closure; the news came as a shock to them. Under the former administration, there were plans to close the Wales Sugar Estate by the year 2017, as it was recognised that the estate was underperforming. The returns earned were woefully inadequate to cover its operational cost. Armed with these facts, the then Government did not bother to invest in bringing the estate into an operable state either in terms of infrastructural or in terms of adequate field management.
It should be noted that the sugar industry then, as it is now, was in a crisis and relied heavily on Government, year after year, for a bailout. The state of the sugar industry is the sum total of poor management, poor worker/employer relations, high cost of production, and low returns, among other factors.
In the scheme of things, taking into consideration the former administration’s plan for the Wales Estate, the closure of that estate was inevitable. The problems of the estate did not occur overnight, but is the accumulation of consistent neglect over time.