Latest update April 25th, 2024 12:59 AM
Dec 17, 2021 News
Kaieteur News – The National Assembly on Thursday approved over $3.8B to the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) for wages, salaries, out-of-crop expenses, as well as the one off $250,000 cash to severed sugar workers.
This was done amid a heated debate between government and opposition members of House over the expenditure for the failing sugar industry. During the session, Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha fiercely defended the disbursement of funds, explaining that the monies were to offset various expenditures for GuySuCo.
Among the expenses, he said, $1.62 B was needed for wages, $ 83 million for pension $28.335 million for union dues. According to the minister, over 5000 workers who were severed and received their full benefits under the previous administration were given an additional one off cash grant which amounted to over $1.6 billion.
A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) Opposition Parliamentarian, Khemraj Ramjattan queried whether the sums for wages and salaries could not have been included in the National budget presented earlier in the year. “This sum for the wages and salaries was something you could have foreseen in time for the budget, so how come it wasn’t included and for such a large sum, when did this urgency of disbursement arise?” Ramjattan queried.
In response, Minister Mustapha explained that the money was GuySuCo’s out-of-crop projects. “This is nothing new!” Mustapha retorted as he continued to explain that the money is necessary for the annual support of the GuySuCo out-of-crop projects.
Additionally, he said “…There was a number of emergency works during the period, money was exhausted; we needed to put it back …”
Opposition Member of Parliament, Jermaine Figueira then questioned the reasoning and feasibility behind pumping money into GuySuCo. “We are disbursing monies to GuySuCo which sells sugar on the international markets. We need to know if the monies are given to a profitable venture. So can the honourable member speak to the profit of the sugar corporation for this period? Figueira asked. He continued that “We cannot be giving GuySuCo billions of dollars every month and that money is going into to failed industry.”
In response to the question, Mustapha stated that the monies disbursed effectively “corrected the wrongs” committed on sugar workers under the previous APNU+AFC collation. “We reduced wastage and we cut the excesses of the previous government especially at the head office. We have reduced staff tremendously,” he said adding that when the APNU+AFC coalition choose to close down several sugar estates across the country many sugar workers were left without earning. As such, Mustapha said the one-off cash grant is to alleviate some of the hardship that the severed workers would face.
When asked what criteria were used to establish the figure of $250,000 one off sum, Minister Mustapha related that the Government relied on an International Labour Organisation (ILO) report and the social ills that existed in several communities. In closing, he told the National Assembly that approximately 1,200 workers were reemployed by the current PPP/C administration.
The Agriculture Minister highlighted that “no amount of money can compensate these workers for the damage done,” but will create jobs for the over 30,000 that were displaced by the sugar estate closures.”
School cash grant
Additionally, the National Assembly approved an additional $285.1 million for the provision of the ‘Because We Care’ cash grants to private school children. This year, this cash grant was pegged at $19,000 per child since it is a combination of a $15,000 grant and a $4,000 uniform voucher. Initially, a sum of $3.2 billion was allocated to adequately cater for the total cash grant distribution to all public school children.
An additional total of $31 million was requested for cash grants to nursery school children, $175 million to primary school children, and $77.9 million for secondary school children. Minister of Education, Priya Manickcahand in her presentation noted that “the programme was a promise by the People’s Party Progressive/Civic that it would be restored once we got into Government. It was abolished by the APNU AFC.” As a result she said, the Government made “a conscious decision, a caring decision, a decision, in service to, and out of love, to the parents of the children of private schools and decided that all of the children of Guyana going to school, public and private, would be beneficiaries of this caring grant.”
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