THIS week, Opposition Leader, Joseph Harmon; PNC/R Candidate, Aubrey Norton, and the propagandist Rudolph Critchlow tried to pull wool over the eyes of Guyanese about the Irfaan Ali’s Government’s decision to give a $250,000 one-off cash grant to the sugar workers who were dismissed by the APNU+AFC Administration back in 2017.

The trio tried but failed to convince Guyanese that the PPP Government was engaged in a plot to bribe and reward their supporters. Even more cunningly, they said that the PPP was discriminatory with the cash grants.
Additionally, Harmon committed to stopping sugar workers from receiving this assistance if he becomes the leader of the PNC and potentially the next President of Guyana.

The propagandist even tried to put a flimsy programme called “unpacked” together to portray these alternative facts and propagandise the issues, not thinking that the public would see right through them.

Firstly, the Ali Government said that assistance is necessary to help the sugar workers back on their feet. The grants will take the form of financial aid. The Ali Government was not distributing this cash grant to the sugar workers as monies for their pensions and other benefits. Such a move would be a case where the Ali Government will be guilty of double-dipping their hands into the public purse; although it is a fact that many of the 7,000 sugar workers did not receive their rightful benefits and pensions.

So, the grant distribution to sugar workers should be seen as the Ali Government doing what it said it would do on the campaign trail to correct the wrong done to these workers. This decision was long in the making, so it is nothing new, underhanded, or surprising.

Secondly, many sugar workers had lost their jobs without notice. Some are still unemployed, while others are underemployed. That is because they were forced back into the job market without any other skills and trade. Thousands of sugar workers and their families felt that the decision by the Coalition to close the estates was inhumane, cruel and devastating.

Even with the small pensions that some received they are still battling the social and economic impact of the decision to close the estates. Some of them who could not stand the hardship committed suicide while others died as a direct result of alcoholism.

So the basis of the cash grant is to help the sugar workers get back on their feet. They will be programmes designed and aimed at retooling them. Also, the government programmes should make their communities ready to deal with the social and mental problems that they continue to face.

And during this point and time in our history, the government can afford this support to dismissed sugar workers.

Thirdly, what the Attorney-General and Legal Affairs Minister, Anil Nandlall said is correct and justifiable. He made no apologies to Harmon, Norton and the Coalition politicians for the grant that this group of workers will get next year.

Reasonably, one could say that the sugar grant was justifiable because the government gave the relief grants to other groups of Guyanese, including pensioners, school children, farmers, frontline workers and families of all strata of society.

What is wrong with sugar workers getting a cash grant? Are they not Guyanese too and therefore entitled to some form of government help or aid? Are they not law-abiding citizens who pay their taxes? If anyone is guilty of racism and discrimination, it is the APNU+AFC politicians. The APNU+AFC Coalition would be silent if the Ali Government allotted this same aid or grant to the public servants or teachers. Their silence would have been deafening. No? But these groups will get the salary and benefits before the end of the year.

Fourthly, the APNU+AFC Coalition must know that its way of thinking about sugar workers is now on full display for the world to see.

Poet Maya Angelou said in one of her writings that “When people show you who they are, believe them, the first time.” Some people got the message the first time when the sugar workers were treated dishonourably and inhumanely by the APNU+AFC Coalition, while others got the message the second time.

Now they have seen the Coalition throw the AFC, Moses Nagamootoo, and Khemraj Ramjattan to the side after using them for the 2015 campaign and throughout their tenure in office. They know how the sugar workers were dealt with by the predominantly discriminatory Coalition politicians.

Finally, the government policy to give sugar workers a grant is not going to smooth over the wrong already committed but it will appease and help them face the challenges that linger within the communities and country.
On the other hand, the government has started the plan for turning GuySuCo around into a viable and profit-making industry.