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Performing the Last Rites on King Sugar | | Press Release | | Author: Wendy Lee Yuen | | Date: 2010-03-31 12:03:02 |
| The Acting Political Leader of the Congress of the People, Mrs. Wendy Lee Yuen condemns the Manning Administration for the recent ad hoc closure of the Sugar Manufacturing Company Limited (SMCL) at Usine St. Madeleine describing it as "performing the last rites on the sugar workers". The COP is of the view that the Manning regime has an uncontrollable fixation with removing all vestiges of the sugar industry in order to secure its divide-and-rule electoral objectives at the expense of food security in T&T.
It also appears that the Manning Administration is hell bent on preventing the local sugar farming community from accessing the substantial grant received from the European Union to compensate them from financial losses and earning a decent livelihood stated the Acting Leader. "Closure of the SMCL, when world-wide developments are demonstrating a resurgence of sugar, buoyed up by both upward price movements and a range of value-added lucrative bye-products is shortsighted and vindictive" she continued.
SMCL is now operating at a profit, keeping 200 citizens employed and providing a reliable supply of granulated sugar for meeting industrial and domestic demand. What is the rationale for such madness from an increasingly arrogant regime that had to back down from the proposed T&T Revenue Authority? She questioned.
The closure of the SMCL will expose T&T to the vagaries of the Guyanese sugar industry that is suffering from production uncertainties and industrial unrest. Besides supply inhibitions, T&T food manufacturers will no longer be able to claim substantial local value added inputs that qualified their products for duty and quota-free access to many regional and metropolitan markets
Mrs. Lee Yuen calls for a re-examination of the Diversification Plan of the Sugar industry by Mr. Winston Dookeran, when he was then Planning Minister in the NAR Government of the 1980's. She concluded by calling upon Government "to immediately rescind its decision to close the SMCL operation, to hold consultations with stakeholders, keep the production of refined sugar and prevent the heartless retrenchment of the sugar workers."
WENDY LEE YUEN
Acting Political Leader
Congress of the People
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