— Nagamootoo urges sugar workers not to lose hope

NEW jobs are being created, said Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo, as he urged redundant sugar workers not to lose hope.
Writing in his weekly column “My Turn” published this Sunday, the prime minister said investment agreements were entered into for 136 projects valued $187 billion via the Ministry of Business last year.

According to the prime minister, 40 of these became operational by the end of 2017. He said while some of the redundant sugar workers could be absorbed into ancillary work, many others could be retrained and prepared for work as independent contractors and as peasant cane and cash-crop farmers.

Already, he said, some 500 former sugar workers have been engaged for possible retraining in fields such as carpentry, masonry, plumbing, and small business enterprises.
“They will prove that they are not incapable of doing other jobs,” he noted.
The prime minister also noted in his column that the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) has recently somersaulted its position at the announcement by President David Granger last week, on the severance package which will be paid to workers this month.

“The union/party leaders were caught off-guard by the announcement, so they changed their chant from ‘pay severance’ to ‘pay severance right NOW’,” the prime minister said.
He said GAWU was convinced that GuySuCo has no money to pay, much less to pay workers at the moment.
“They knew that the government would be under pressure to trim allocations for various ministries to find the additional $2 billion to meet immediate payment in the face of a current budget deficit,” he said.

He added: “Sensible onlookers were baffled that a union could actually frustrate payment of severance to affected workers, but it is opposition politricks to feed on the hardships of workers, and to channel their disaffection into political anger and rage against a young, incoming government that is doing all it possibly could to cushion the impact of the crisis that it had inherited.”

He said since the coalition government took office in May 2015, the fate of the sugar industry has been on the front burner.
It was recognised that the sugar industry has been historically a political battleground and an arena for ethnic mobilisation. He said the government had anticipated the high expectations that severance should be paid, and has been considering various options.
“As an interim measure, our coalition government budgeted an additional sum of six billion, three hundred million ($6,300,000,000) for GuySuCo, of which five hundred million ($500,000,000) was for an advance on the severance bill,” he noted.
He said from the get-go, the government tried to grapple with the “sad situation in which we met the sugar industry”.

He noted that within four months of taking office, the government established a Commission of Inquiry; then tabled in the National Assembly a State Paper outlining the broad policy for restructuring of the industry.
It has since set up a Special Purpose Unit to manage the reform.
“I believe that investors will soon come on board at Skeldon, Rose Hall, Enmore and Wales and that new opportunity will be opened for sugar workers and their children,” Prime Minister Nagamootoo said.