Dear Editor
THERE was never a doubt that Bharrat Jagdeo and cabal’s proclamation about re-opening the closed sugar estates, thus restoring affected sugar workers back to their jobs, was nothing more than the continuation of the PPP/C shameless dishonesty about the status of an industry which they had caused to collapse under a mountainous weight of debt — some $82B.

In fact, it was quite clear that such misleading announcement sometime ago by the hapless Irfaan Ali, was a means of introducing himself as the PPP/C’s official candidate, thereby highlighting what has been the party’s most deceptive playing card in a broader criminal political scam of all and every means possible, of holding on to the votes in the sugar belt ad nauseam, since it has comprehensively been proven that there is no other value of the sugar belt to the PPP/C, even when it had held the reins of government, except as a captive supplier of votes. There will not be a repeat of what has been already publicised and available for those who may want to understand how the opposition party as government undermined the once prosperous giant of what had been sugar. One would only hope that the children of those workers, who have been brought up in an environment of seemingly only listening to their seniors, Freedom Radio and other allied media, in addition to being bombarded with criminal lies and disinformation, will one day begin to read and find out for themselves who the real culprits were in the destruction of an economic earner which contributed so much to their upbringing.

Such an empty promise, bereft of any reasonable explanation, was never a reality as exposed by government spokespersons, the nation’s foremost trade unionist Lincoln Lewis, and even the leader of one of the newly formed political parties, who branded such an Ali statement as “fooling the sugar workers.” Nothing was more shocking and plainly irrational than when there were supporting voices of well-known personalities who obviously sold their consciences for hoped-for future political rewards. All of them are as guilty as Jagdeo and his party of fostering a falsehood in the minds of the nation’s sugar workers. They were equally willing contributors to an opposition tradition of pandering to race. They know who they are, for they have been erstwhile partners in an act of marked political crookery that aided opposition deceptions. They by their collaboration, did not do truth any good.

But now the PPP/C has changed its “re-opening of sugar estates’’ tune, to one of “finding jobs, assistance for former sugar workers, and “ensure that sugar workers get back a job” — a la Jagdeo, to Ali’s “we will look at the creation of jobs … not only …restoration of jobs in the sugar industry…that our people here and all across Guyana…” These are, again, promises, with no explanations as to how these new creations will be possible. This smells very much like the 50,000-job promise which is now being watered down. This, too, was never supported by any credible factual statistical evidence
Ali would have known that the coalition government did not leave the terminated workers without post-sugar support, as many of them in addition to being paid severance had been offered skills training which prepared them for self-employment and other earning opportunities in areas best suited to their newly acquired skills. Quite a number have been shopped by the private sector, and even by the oil and gas industry. It is obvious that this somersault has been done to detract from what would have been justified criticism by other political parties, since it never in the first instance made any sense in terms of being viable, and was just another gambit to keep false hopes alive among sugar workers. Editor, again, here is just cause and very good reasons for those people within the sugar belt, particularly those who are PPP/C supporters, to demand of their party leaders an explanation as to another piece of political gymnastic, which can only lead them into a hopeless future.

Regards
Earl Hamilton