‘Now what we going to do?’

Some of the sugar workers who are set to be without jobs from next year after they were finished working yesterday. From right are Bharrat Ramjit, Arjoon, Chetram [only name given], and Partab Daby.

“Enmore will suffer. It done. It done deh. It gon’ turn a ghost town,” says Bharrat Ramjit, one of the sugar workers from the Enmore Estate, who will be without a job for the first time in over two decades as GuySuCo has notified 1,100 workers of impending layoffs. “When Friday reach and you stretch you hand, you done know you gon get something. But now what we going to do?” Ramjit, a cane transporter, who has given the sugar industry some 23 years of service, added.

Residents fear that the community, which relied heavily on the sugar industry, is destined for a massive slowdown in business and an increase in domestic violence and petty crime as the estate, which employs thousands of workers from the East Coast community and its surrounding environs, is set to close its doors on December 31.

GuySuCo Public Rela-tions Officer Audreyanna Thomas confirmed to Stabroek News yesterday that the number of employees that will be made redundant by the end of the year stands at approximately 1,100.