— finance minister says PPP presidential candidate’s big promises unrealistic

MINISTER of Finance Winston Jordan has categorised the recent utterances by the PPP/C’s presidential hopeful, Irfaan Ali, about his plans to create 50,000 jobs and reopen closed sugar estates as offerings during the “silly season”.

According to the veteran economist, given the present and projected state of the local economy for the next few years, Ali’s promises are wishful thinking at best.

Ali is merely “selling snake oil to the populace to win votes,” contends Jordan, who believes that “the population was not as gullible as it was some 10 or 15 years ago.”
People need to be more aware of their local environment and be able to determine who’s telling truth from fiction, said Jordan.

However, he said too that he understands that “die-hard supporters couldn’t care less whether he said 50,000 or 100,000 jobs, but those who are floating, in-between or the less than die-hard supporters would accept that such outrageous statements wouldn’t do the party any good.”

The minister called for “realism on all sides” as Guyanese prepare for elections within months, and asked that the electorate not be sold false promises, which would be broken “even before the elections are held”.

Noting the opposition’s promise to reopen closed sugar estates, Minister Jordan described it as most unfortunate since there was no need to retell the story of how heavily indebted those facilities were.

Even with the three operating estates, only about 100,000 tonnes of sugar is produced annually. This works out to 10 tonnes per worker at a production cost that is still twice the actual world market price for the sweetener.

The government’s move to increase the industry’s efficiency has resulted in the proposed sale of the more inefficient estates, the minister reminded and said negotiations are well advanced. The caveat, he noted, is that potential buyers must remain in sugar, pointing out that “it may not be raw sugar, but it may be sugar by-products or they may want to diversify into other crops”.

Buyers must also employ as many former sugar workers as possible, he said.
Given the current state of the sugar industry, the finance minister opined that not many former workers may wish to seek re-employment with the estates, having had their severance and being able to put their monies to good use.

The utterances by the opposition, the minister reiterated, were mainly “grandstanding” given the conditions of the closed estates and the fact that many had critical pieces of equipment scavenged to keep other units such as factories operational.

Recent comments by Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo, Jordan said, cannot be taken in isolation since they were responsible for the Skeldon debacle.

“Despite all of the money and all of the experts from at least five countries, including Cuba, Brazil and South Africa, all the king’s men can’t put Skeldon together back again ever.”

He added: “As the government, we must continue to educate the populace about the realities of Guyana, and how we are trying to bring sustainable jobs and livelihoods to them. We can’t stop them if they are going to vote one way or the other. We could try to convince them. There are going to be the die-hards but I’m sure several will be convinced of the work we have done over the last three and half years and I’m sure they are going to vote for the coalition.”