Gov’t intends to raise up sugar industry

— restoring pride of workers 

 

DPI, Guyana, Saturday, August 8, 2020

 

‘We intend to raise up the [sugar] industry and to help it, and its workers resume the once proud place in our economy,” this vow was made by His Excellency, Mohamed Irfaan Ali.

The Head of State was at the time addressing guests at his Inauguration Ceremony at the National Cultural Centre (NCC) this morning.

According to President Ali, the industry was ravaged under the previous administration, and the workers were made to suffer untold hardship.

“Once proud men who worked in the sugar industry from sun-up to sundown, never complaining about the back-breaking nature of their jobs, are today barely scratching a living. Their anguish is not only that they can’t earn a decent wage; it is that they cannot feed their families. Hunger and malnutrition abound.”

President Ali said these conditions do not reflect the Guyana in which the workers were raised and will not be allowed to continue.

He said no attempts were made to seek new paths by which aspects of the industry could have been salvaged. The Head of State committed his government to assemble the fragments of the industry, which he noted – assets were “stripped by NICIL in and disposed of in a criminal manner.”

‘’The once greatest contributor to our nation’s economy has been beaten down to its knees, and the workers tossed to a heap of unemployment and misery. We intend to raise up the industry and to help it, and its workers resume the once proud place in our economy.” 

President Ali also committed to restoring the once proud place of all the other industries, including rice and bauxite.

“It is bad enough that I must draw your attention to other areas in our economy including bauxite, rice, agriculture, forestry, mining. We have already commenced work on ensuring that we do all that is necessary and possible within the constraints to put back these industries on the path of growth. Sadly, workers bore the brunt of this incompetence, inefficiency, and irresponsibility. My Government will dismantle the policies of the previous administration that created an environment completely unfavourable to workers.”

He noted that the new Ministry of Labour that has been created will be tasked to create “nobility in work, of rewarding labour with adequate wages, and of respecting the rights of workers in every sector, every industry, every business.”

“We intend to give workers the place of pride they deserve and the rewards that they merit.”