–Dr. Singh says

MINISTER of Finance with Responsbility for the Public Service, Ashni Singh, addressed a packed gathering at the Adelphi Square, East Canje Berbice, on Friday evening, emphasising that the PPP/C is the only party genuinely committed to serving the people of the country.

He pointed to the reopening of the Rose Hall Estate as a prime example, stating, “For that one reason alone the people of Canje and Region Six will vote PPP/C.”

Alluding to one of the promises kept by government in its 2020 Manifesto to reopen the sugar estates closed by the previous APNU+AFC administration and revitalisation of the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo), Dr.  Singh noted that the reopening of the Rose Hall estate by the PPP/C has had a tremendous positive impact on residents who live in the surrounding communities.

The minister was speaking during an interview at the National Communications Network in Berbice during the programme ‘Truth, Trust and Transformation’. Dr. Singh visited many of the homes and spoke to persons in the community directly.

He noted as well that residents expressed their appreciation that the PPP/C under the leadership of President Ali made good on its commitment to revitalise the industry, reopen the estate and re-employ thousands of persons.

“I visited many homes where the principal breadwinner or sometimes two breadwinners or homes where you may have the father and the son or two leading breadwinners in the family are employed in the sugar industry. And I heard from home-to-home, stories about how these families struggled and were literally pushed to the brink of their survival when APNU+AFC closed the industry and put the leading breadwinners in those homes out of employment and they lost their incomes.

“This experience I had, the people needed no convincing, they needed no argument, and it called for no canvassing or lobbying on my part. They saw me and immediately said they are appreciative of our government’s reopening of the industry and reinjecting of financing into the industry,” he explained to the programme’s Host Christopher Holder.

The Minister said this was not a first-time experience as he has had the experience before each time he goes to sugar producing and agricultural communities throughout Region Six where village after village people said they felt the brunt of the impact of the closure of the sugar estates on their local village or community economy.

“And not only in hardcore sugar industry communities themselves. Even in New Amsterdam, I have had people say to me that when sugar was closed, there was no money circulating in the economy-in the markets, in the shops, the taxi drivers, the minibus drivers, market vendors…this has been a unanimous, clear and unequivocal message that I have heard from everybody throughout Region Six who recognise that when APNU was in government and when sugar was basically on its deathbed, the entire Region Six economy had dried up because no money was circulating, people were not working,” he explained further.

Dr. Singh noted that therefore this statistic, the fact that the APNU+AFC put thousands of direct workers out of employment, can easily understate the magnitude of the impact that was felt because not only did the sugar workers lose their incomes, but those incomes that they previously were enjoying when the PPP/C was in government prior to 2015, those incomes used to be spent in the markets, in the shops, in the village shops and even in the big municipal markets (Skeldon, Corriverton, New Amsterdam, Port Mourant) in the county.

“But what has been very interesting is that people understand very clearly the dishonesty of the APNU+AFC in their pretentious of concern for sugar workers. People are very clear in Region Six. They know that APNU+AFC, no matter what they promise them, they know that their intention is to close the industry again and for me it was very interesting to hear this from people,” he related.

The finance minister highlighted that he knows this to be true as well as every time the government went to parliament to propose money in the budget for the sugar industry, the Opposition has opposed it and have said that they don’t support putting money into the industry and so government is fully aware that the APNU, AFC and its cohorts have no intention of putting money in the industry and have no intention of keeping the industry open.

Meanwhile, also appearing as a guest on the programme alongside Dr. Singh, was Dr. Leslie Ramsammy who explained that the assault on the sugar industry by the APNU+AFC did not begin in 2015 when that party was in government but derailing of the entire country’s economy (of which the sugar industry is a part) actually started since 2011-2015 when the party held the majority in the parliament and the PPP/C was a minority government.

“They used that one-seat majority to cut the budget and one of the budgets they cut was GUYSUCO’s budget. He posited further that there is only one political party that is interested in preserving sugar and it is the PPP/C.

The sugar estates had been the livelihood of thousands of sugar workers and an economic pillar of the communities in which they lived but were closed by the APNU+AFC Government once that party came into office in 2015 following a campaign in which they promised the sugar workers and communities during meetings and rallies that they would not close the estates and would revitalise the industry.