Dear Editor,
Thank you Isabelle de Caires for stoking the debate on the most urgent and compelling national issue of the closure of Wales estate.
These letters serve an important function, namely, they show that the government should not be firm on closure; they should let the debate go on, since there may be better options.
Sugar is losing money big time. The national treasury bailed out sugar at the rate of US$200m in the last 5years, an estimated US$60m for the year 2016. So what is the government’s interest in all of this? Getting out of the business doesn’t have to mean closing the business. It could mean selling the business to large multi-national corporations (if one could be found); handing over the business to a shareholder-owned corporation comprising workers and the Guyanese public who are willing to invest in the company. In this way government would not have to spend another dollar for annual bailouts of sugar.
The government has other interests:
(1) Citizen-workers should be gainfully employed.
(2) The government wants to get paid for the assets in the sugar industry. It may lease the lands to worker-owned corporations ‒ 99-year leases (first 15 years free, impose lease fees thereafter).
One former chairman of GuySuCo, Vic Oditt, has offered a proposal that deserves debate and consideration. This matter should be debated in parliament and in every town square in the whole country.
Yours faithfully,
Mike Persaud
