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Last bundle of cane lifted at Wales

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Workers of the decades-old Wales Sugar Estate, West Bank Demerara and their families cried early Sunday morning when they heard the sounding of the horn that signalled the closing of the estate.

To date, neither the government nor the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) has given the hundreds of Wales workers who are now without jobs any concrete information on diversification or alternatives at the estate. The government and GuySuCo have been repeatedly pressed to provide this information but there appears to be nothing solid.

The last bundle being lifted

During a visit to the area yesterday, a worker, Sultan Hussain told Stabroek News that the “horn blow for about five minutes,” indicating that the “last bundle of cane was lifted.”

Another worker said they were emotional as the reality finally hit them that the jobs that they depended on to support their families had “come to an abrupt end.”

In January this year, government announced the planned closure of the estate via a press release. The closure was aimed at relieving some of the financial burden on the beleaguered sugar corporation. The workers and their families, with support from the main sugar union, the Guyana Agricultural & General Workers’ Union, held several protests, marches and candlelight vigils in an effort to get the government to visit them.

Although they were “counting down the days” and anticipated the closure, they were becoming anxious and frustrated but were still hopeful that the government would rescind its decision.

Now that it was finally closed, they expressed feelings of disappointment and sadness – disappointed that the government never consulted with them about its intention or to tell them about their plans for diversification.

Linden Toney, a boiler charge-hand, was on duty to witness the final operation and he too burst into tears.

Being the “breadwinner of the home” and the father of a son who is sitting the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate next year, he thought about the impact the closure would have on his family.

He worried about the utility bills he has to pay, providing food and other basic necessities and most of all, about finding another job.

“Now they bringing VAT on the water and light bills. The minister [of Finance, Winston Jordan] said that if you (incur less than)  $10,000 for light and $1,500 for water you don’t have to pay VAT, but I can show you my bill, I pay more than that for both,” he told this newspaper.

His wife, Wanica told SN that she was at home when she heard the sound of the “whistle blowing” she knew it was the last she would be hearing it.

“My heart rate started to increase and I felt sad for my family, for all the mothers with small children and for the women who are not working, knowing this month would be the last pay from the estate,” she said sadly.

The couple pointed out that that type of blowing was normally associated with sadness, explaining that whenever a “worker dead and the funeral is passing the horn would blow like that.”

Wanica feels that “a lot of things would start happening in the area now,” referring to stealing that may be as a result of unemployment. But she is praying and hoping for the best.

Replies sorted oldest to newest

Region 3 presents a good place to start a new kind of product produced from sugarcane. Try a completely different financial and ownership structure and product that requires sugarcane, while also doing the fish farming. There is enough land for both. You already have an organically evolved network of private cane farmers in Region 3. PPP and GAWU should have an alternative plan for the the industry and take it to govt. A yearly subsidy to a dying industry is not a plan, BTW. I hope GAWU gets this soon. Planning industrial unrest is not the only role of a union. They should study the German labor unions. I get the impression the APNU+AFC govt and present CEO see the solutions more at the microeconomic level. That's obviously only part of the problem. Solutions have to be national and macro in nature. This is a good time for PPP to show it can govern - to show it's a party not only capable of scrupulous political mobilization, but also it has solutions to national problems. The govt might be willing to work with PPP. It might reject. But they would have shown that they are an alternative.

FM

Uitvlugt Sugar Factory the only one standing in Region Three,that factory produced the best white sugar,three of them gone since nationalization.

In the 70's the Estate tried mechanization on a few plots and was never heard of again.

Django
Last edited by Django
Prashad posted:

Anti-koolie racist gang will use every trick to close down the sugar estates.

Has nothing to do with anti-coolie. Wales sugar estate has always employed about 30% Afro-Guyanese. It's more an issue of lack of vision. The independence generation screwed up the country and they continue to do so.

FM

East Indians are in a double trap. They receive stiff racism and when they speak up they encounter " you are being racist towards me because of the caste system" or " your racism is destroying Guyana" we have to bring an end to this BS. The only way to do this is to get our own independent sovereign country.

Prashad
Drugb posted:

The Indians will find a way to survive, not sure about the Afros. Possibly this will lead to an increase in crime as people have to find new ways to  make a living. 

Actually there is no innate advantage of Indos over Afros of Wales. That's the instinctive brown bai KKK thing deceiving yuh. There is a very large number of black farmers all over Guyana and historically blacks were the trailblazers in small-scale and medium-scale farming before Guyana was British Guiana. This does not even account for the fact that Blacks were also the pioneer's in small-scale mining and timber logging in common lands. Blacks and Mullatoes owned sugar factory and estates (but that's another discussion why they eventually failed...the present CEO of Guysuco and Granger should keep this in mind). They were the first to plant rice in Guyana. They paid full price for land while Indians got a discount as an incentive system to trap Indos on the sugar plantations by enabling them to grow rice on adjoining lands. The point I am trying to make is they will all suffer regardless of ethnicity because the APNU+AFC govt lacks vision.

FM
TK posted:
Drugb posted:

 The point I am trying to make is they will all suffer regardless of ethnicity because the APNU+AFC govt lacks vision.

Yet Granger is bold enough to cuss down overseas based Guyanese because he wants us to open factories.  Now why would one do something as silly as that when the same Granger has no economic development policy, aside from managing his books.  Jordan is a glorified book keeper. Not sure what Gaskin does, but from the beginning I heard that the man isn't bright.

The fact that there is no ministries responsible for foreign trade and economic development, yet there are ones for "social cohesion" and "citizenship" always filled me with unease.

Any way Granger and Nagamootoo will be in their mind 70s by 2020, ready to collect that nice pension which Jagdeo negotiated for himself They don't care what happens after that, so why any need for vision.

FM
Prashad posted:

East Indians are in a double trap. They receive stiff racism and when they speak up they encounter " you are being racist towards me because of the caste system" or " your racism is destroying Guyana" we have to bring an end to this BS. The only way to do this is to get our own independent sovereign country.

Oi man yo rass not tired repeating the same shyte each post? Where in the world would Guyanese Indians get a country of their own? Dam dude.

cain
Last edited by cain
caribny posted:
TK posted:
Drugb posted:

 The point I am trying to make is they will all suffer regardless of ethnicity because the APNU+AFC govt lacks vision.

Yet Granger is bold enough to cuss down overseas based Guyanese because he wants us to open factories.  Now why would one do something as silly as that when the same Granger has no economic development policy, aside from managing his books.  Jordan is a glorified book keeper. Not sure what Gaskin does, but from the beginning I heard that the man isn't bright.

The fact that there is no ministries responsible for foreign trade and economic development, yet there are ones for "social cohesion" and "citizenship" always filled me with unease.

Any way Granger and Nagamootoo will be in their mind 70s by 2020, ready to collect that nice pension which Jagdeo negotiated for himself They don't care what happens after that, so why any need for vision.

This is the first post I notice that you are not being biased.

K

I have been following this TK...  boy oh boy, this guy is all over the place... it's like Granger and Naga piss is poison to him now ... 

I like his Economic View Points , very interesting, and this is what he should stay on.  

FM
Nehru posted:

Wait TK says PNC lacks vision?? BUT he was bawling the opposite only 18 months ago. I man waiting to hear this explanation.

Didn't we all predict that they would get kicked to the curb?  Greed and vindictiveness can do terrible things to people.

Bibi Haniffa

TK is an academic who wants to make a contribution towards Guyana's development.   He has a passion for economics based on his writings and research. To make an impact on Guyana one has to toe a party line most, if not all of the times.  Private companies in guyana offers nothing in terms of allowing an academic to have an influence on policies.  TK offered his talent to both parties but both failed to see what he has to offer. I think he has good intentions. 

Billy Ram Balgobin
TK posted:
Drugb posted:

The Indians will find a way to survive, not sure about the Afros. Possibly this will lead to an increase in crime as people have to find new ways to  make a living. 

Actually there is no innate advantage of Indos over Afros of Wales. That's the instinctive brown bai KKK thing deceiving yuh. There is a very large number of black farmers all over Guyana and historically blacks were the trailblazers in small-scale and medium-scale farming before Guyana was British Guiana. This does not even account for the fact that Blacks were also the pioneer's in small-scale mining and timber logging in common lands. Blacks and Mullatoes owned sugar factory and estates (but that's another discussion why they eventually failed...the present CEO of Guysuco and Granger should keep this in mind). They were the first to plant rice in Guyana. They paid full price for land while Indians got a discount as an incentive system to trap Indos on the sugar plantations by enabling them to grow rice on adjoining lands. The point I am trying to make is they will all suffer regardless of ethnicity because the APNU+AFC govt lacks vision.

I believe your information on Black Guyanese farmers is a bit outdated. They have long abandoned farming in preference for more lucrative opportunities in the public and private sector. The Indians stuck with it and represent the backbone of the farming industry with little or no reward or appreciation. 

You should not look at the past and mistake it for the current conditions. The gold industry is dominated by Indians and other non blacks. I know this as my family is heavily invested there. You only speak from what is fed to you from Granger et al.  When I visit, I go to mining conventions and what we see is the high producing miners are non blacks. True enough there are significant quantities of black small scale producers but they don't contribute to the revenue stream significantly. In fact they live paycheck to paycheck, barely breaking even and evading royalties. 

FM

Druggie,

You have got to be kidding. I have statistics that show that between 30 to 35% of all cash farmers in Guyana is Black. The African population is 30%, BTW, excluding mixed folks. So, that number is right there in keeping with their percent of population. I am not discussing anecdotes like picking up trends from a convention. I also visit agricultural regions like Mocha, East Bank Essequibo, East Coast Dem, etc. With respect to mining, I don't yet have the statistics, but I would doubt in the strongest terms that East Indians are into gold mining at a greater level than Africans. You have people talking about marginalization and PPP was busy dishing out land to the Clerk of National Assembly (1200 acres to a black guy), Lumumba and crew, Ministers in this present govt, etc. They are all doing gold mining or renting their lands to others. So, when you guys in your brown bai KKK fit tries to belittle blacks, you are actually hurting the second poorest group in Guyana - rural East Indians (after Amerindians).  

When I'm in Guyana and try to get natural honey and kapadilla (), I can only get those from Black gatherers, BTW. So, that tells me they have a more intricate understanding of the natural conditions than Indians.

What you should be thinking about - instead of engaging daily in brown bai KKK isms - is why over the Jagdeo-Ramotar regime you have the new phenomenon of East Indian youths becoming gang members linked to urban gangs in crimes and drugs. That's a Jagdeo legacy. I know Jagdoe only wants to hear about his positives, but this fact is his burden to bear. The PPP shills who surround him can't dare tell him that. I certainly can!!

 

FM
Imran posted:

I have been following this TK...  boy oh boy, this guy is all over the place... it's like Granger and Naga piss is poison to him now ... 

I like his Economic View Points , very interesting, and this is what he should stay on.  

Lemme put it like dis...I can be like that because my mortgage payment or salary does not depend on being a slave to a political party.

FM
caribny posted:
TK posted:
Drugb posted:

 The point I am trying to make is they will all suffer regardless of ethnicity because the APNU+AFC govt lacks vision.

Yet Granger is bold enough to cuss down overseas based Guyanese because he wants us to open factories.  Now why would one do something as silly as that when the same Granger has no economic development policy, aside from managing his books.  Jordan is a glorified book keeper. Not sure what Gaskin does, but from the beginning I heard that the man isn't bright.

The fact that there is no ministries responsible for foreign trade and economic development, yet there are ones for "social cohesion" and "citizenship" always filled me with unease.

Any way Granger and Nagamootoo will be in their mind 70s by 2020, ready to collect that nice pension which Jagdeo negotiated for himself They don't care what happens after that, so why any need for vision.

Nagamootoo can talk good at campaign rallies...the man has a smooth tongue. Granger is thinking about his village economies, his next retired army veteran to hire or the next event of pageantry. I would not have had some of the ministries they have, but I guess they had to find Minista wuk for many of them. For sure what I would have done is have a Diaspora MP and a Ministry dedicated to Diaspora as an economic value.

FM
TK posted:
caribny posted:
TK posted:
Drugb posted:

 The point I am trying to make is they will all suffer regardless of ethnicity because the APNU+AFC govt lacks vision.

Yet Granger is bold enough to cuss down overseas based Guyanese because he wants us to open factories.  Now why would one do something as silly as that when the same Granger has no economic development policy, aside from managing his books.  Jordan is a glorified book keeper. Not sure what Gaskin does, but from the beginning I heard that the man isn't bright.

The fact that there is no ministries responsible for foreign trade and economic development, yet there are ones for "social cohesion" and "citizenship" always filled me with unease.

Any way Granger and Nagamootoo will be in their mind 70s by 2020, ready to collect that nice pension which Jagdeo negotiated for himself They don't care what happens after that, so why any need for vision.

Nagamootoo can talk good at campaign rallies...the man has a smooth tongue. Granger is thinking about his village economies, his next retired army veteran to hire or the next event of pageantry. I would not have had some of the ministries they have, but I guess they had to find Minista wuk for many of them. For sure what I would have done is have a Diaspora MP and a Ministry dedicated to Diaspora as an economic value.

Buyer's remorse Dr. TK?

FM
skeldon_man posted:
TK posted:
caribny posted:
TK posted:
Drugb posted:

 The point I am trying to make is they will all suffer regardless of ethnicity because the APNU+AFC govt lacks vision.

Yet Granger is bold enough to cuss down overseas based Guyanese because he wants us to open factories.  Now why would one do something as silly as that when the same Granger has no economic development policy, aside from managing his books.  Jordan is a glorified book keeper. Not sure what Gaskin does, but from the beginning I heard that the man isn't bright.

The fact that there is no ministries responsible for foreign trade and economic development, yet there are ones for "social cohesion" and "citizenship" always filled me with unease.

Any way Granger and Nagamootoo will be in their mind 70s by 2020, ready to collect that nice pension which Jagdeo negotiated for himself They don't care what happens after that, so why any need for vision.

Nagamootoo can talk good at campaign rallies...the man has a smooth tongue. Granger is thinking about his village economies, his next retired army veteran to hire or the next event of pageantry. I would not have had some of the ministries they have, but I guess they had to find Minista wuk for many of them. For sure what I would have done is have a Diaspora MP and a Ministry dedicated to Diaspora as an economic value.

Buyer's remorse Dr. TK?

Oh, not at all. I would do it all over again. Guyana needs regular democratic turnover...in the absence of constitutional reforms and a viable third party. I am glad the PPP lost the eleckshun. We've got to keep turning over governance (shunning dem) until the country settles into an equilibrium of a truly great leader. The alternatives are civil war, destabilizations through subterfuge, and dictatorships/plutocracy/oligarchies/autocratic leaders...think about it. My hope is the PPP would be sending clear messages of contrition, but those are mixed at best.  

FM
TK posted:
skeldon_man posted:
TK posted:
caribny posted:
TK posted:
Drugb posted:

 The point I am trying to make is they will all suffer regardless of ethnicity because the APNU+AFC govt lacks vision.

Yet Granger is bold enough to cuss down overseas based Guyanese because he wants us to open factories.  Now why would one do something as silly as that when the same Granger has no economic development policy, aside from managing his books.  Jordan is a glorified book keeper. Not sure what Gaskin does, but from the beginning I heard that the man isn't bright.

The fact that there is no ministries responsible for foreign trade and economic development, yet there are ones for "social cohesion" and "citizenship" always filled me with unease.

Any way Granger and Nagamootoo will be in their mind 70s by 2020, ready to collect that nice pension which Jagdeo negotiated for himself They don't care what happens after that, so why any need for vision.

Nagamootoo can talk good at campaign rallies...the man has a smooth tongue. Granger is thinking about his village economies, his next retired army veteran to hire or the next event of pageantry. I would not have had some of the ministries they have, but I guess they had to find Minista wuk for many of them. For sure what I would have done is have a Diaspora MP and a Ministry dedicated to Diaspora as an economic value.

Buyer's remorse Dr. TK?

Oh, not at all. I would do it all over again. Guyana needs regular democratic turnover...in the absence of constitutional reforms and a viable third party. I am glad the PPP lost the eleckshun. We've got to keep turning over governance (shunning dem) until the country settles into an equilibrium of a truly great leader. The alternatives are civil war, destabilizations through subterfuge, and dictatorships/plutocracy/oligarchies/autocratic leaders...think about it. My hope is the PPP would be sending clear messages of contrition, but those are mixed at best.  

This does not mean from bad to worse, does it?

FM

Skelly bai...I am not God to decide who is bad and who is worse. What I do know is the alternative to bad and worse is not going to be pretty with aile revenues in the pickcha.

FM
TK posted:

Region 3 presents a good place to start a new kind of product produced from sugarcane. Try a completely different financial and ownership structure and product that requires sugarcane, while also doing the fish farming. There is enough land for both. You already have an organically evolved network of private cane farmers in Region 3. PPP and GAWU should have an alternative plan for the the industry and take it to govt. A yearly subsidy to a dying industry is not a plan, BTW. I hope GAWU gets this soon. Planning industrial unrest is not the only role of a union. They should study the German labor unions. I get the impression the APNU+AFC govt and present CEO see the solutions more at the microeconomic level. That's obviously only part of the problem. Solutions have to be national and macro in nature. This is a good time for PPP to show it can govern - to show it's a party not only capable of scrupulous political mobilization, but also it has solutions to national problems. The govt might be willing to work with PPP. It might reject. But they would have shown that they are an alternative.

There is potential for all sorts of exports from Guyana. However, the country and any government lacks the initiatives to guide the producers in getting quality products to the market. Another thing, Is Guyanese willing to be seriously productive?

S

I hear this illiterate BULLSHIT all the time from FILTH HEADs " Meh glad PPP lost the Helection". So the grave consequences of a murdering, incompetent, inhuman and uselessness of the PNC dont bother these animals one bit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nehru
cain posted:
Prashad posted:

East Indians are in a double trap. They receive stiff racism and when they speak up they encounter " you are being racist towards me because of the caste system" or " your racism is destroying Guyana" we have to bring an end to this BS. The only way to do this is to get our own independent sovereign country.

Oi man yo rass not tired repeating the same shyte each post? Where in the world would Guyanese Indians get a country of their own? Dam dude.

On the Corentyne.

S
TK posted:
Drugb posted:

The Indians will find a way to survive, not sure about the Afros. Possibly this will lead to an increase in crime as people have to find new ways to  make a living. 

Actually there is no innate advantage of Indos over Afros of Wales. That's the instinctive brown bai KKK thing deceiving yuh. There is a very large number of black farmers all over Guyana and historically blacks were the trailblazers in small-scale and medium-scale farming before Guyana was British Guiana. This does not even account for the fact that Blacks were also the pioneer's in small-scale mining and timber logging in common lands. Blacks and Mullatoes owned sugar factory and estates (but that's another discussion why they eventually failed...the present CEO of Guysuco and Granger should keep this in mind). They were the first to plant rice in Guyana. They paid full price for land while Indians got a discount as an incentive system to trap Indos on the sugar plantations by enabling them to grow rice on adjoining lands. The point I am trying to make is they will all suffer regardless of ethnicity because the APNU+AFC govt lacks vision.

This koolie type thinking that East Indians were given heaven on Earth by the British forms the cornerstone of racist anti-koolie hate. Racist anti-koolie quote koolie boys like TK and Fk to disguise their racial hate when they preach that East Indians received silver, land and gold from the British to justify their anti-koolie racist hate. Only a few days ago a Jamaican told me that the East Indian people were given so much wealth by the British. Yet he knows fully well that the Koolie has always been at the bottom of Jamaican society. The only workable solution folks is the peaceful economic struggle for a complete independent sovereign country where we can have our own armed forces, intelligence forces, a democratic and free society to ensure future generations of our people have a secure existence on the South American continent.

 

 

Prashad
Last edited by Prashad
TK posted:

Skelly bai...I am not God to decide who is bad and who is worse. What I do know is the alternative to bad and worse is not going to be pretty with aile revenues in the pickcha.

Dr. I know you are not god. However, you took it upon yourself then and still do, judge the PPP as the evil one. As we look into this current admin, we see worse evil. Do you judge the PNC now as worse than the PPP? As for the hile revenue, it's too far away to know who is going to administer the benefits. If it's your PNC, then kark duck fuh Guyana..gone fuh channa. Margile.

FM
kp posted:
.

This is the first post I notice that you are not being biased.

So blinded in your Indo KKK racism because I refused to remain silent in the face of Indian racism that you failed to notice that I made similar comments BEFORE APNU and the AFC won the election.

What they have become confirmed my worst fears.

FM
TK posted:

Druggie,

.

What you should be thinking about - instead of engaging daily in brown bai KKK isms - is why over the Jagdeo-Ramotar regime you have the new phenomenon of East Indian youths becoming gang members linked to urban gangs in crimes and drugs. That's a Jagdeo legacy.

 

I told druggie this years ago when he was screaming that blacks have a criminal mindset and are useless. Much of Linden, which has employment, is involved in gold. Ditto G/T.  This is why the drop of gold prices, which has hurt the small scale miners has resulted in a slow down in G/T.

Yes the big local money in gold is Indian, and yes the blacks are smaller in scale, but druggie refuses to admit to the fact that the vast majority of Indians are no better off than are blacks.

Like most of the Indo KKK he uses the 2% of the Indian population who are oligarchs as a measure of the overall Indian condition.

Well as Indians move out of the traditional mindset many are falling into the same pathologies as are urban blacks. Yes out of wedlock births might be lower but really, is a "family" where the father is a drunk and a life abuser any more likely to produce productive kids than is another where there is no father, and where the mother is either too busy or too angry to raise the kids?

It is a known fact that there was always dysfunction on the sugar estates where wives had to be present when their husbands got paid, so that they could at least get some of the money before it was all spent on Peter D'Aguiar.  Now with families split by migration  its even worse.

FM
TK posted:
.

Nagamootoo can talk good at campaign rallies...the man has a smooth tongue. Granger is thinking about his village economies, 

I went to a few fund raisers where both gentlemen were present. Another uneasy feeling that I had was when both men gave evasive answers whenever questions were asked about what their plans to economically transform Guyana would be.

Nagamootoo said nothing and Granger babbled nonsense about beehives and other petty nonsense like that. Fundamentally both men are communists, and neither have respect for private enterprise. We are seeing the ongoing saga of the Burnham/Jagan era.

FM
Prashad posted:
. Only a few days ago a Jamaican told me that the East Indian people were given so much wealth by the British. Yet he knows fully well that the Koolie has always been at the bottom of Jamaican society. .

 

 

Stop inventing your lies. The animosity in Jamaica is between light skinned (white/Syrian and lighter mulattos) and the majority black population. A second animosity in Jamaica involves the Chinese who owned many of the businesses and real estate in the ghetto areas, as well as much of the record industry.  THEY were the ones who were seen as favored.

There are two types of Indians in Jamaica.   The Indian expats, who are disliked because they refuse to integrate, and the descendants of indentures.  There is full integration in Jamaica between the descendants of indentures (the so called coolie) and the descendants of field slaves (the so called Quashie) because BOTH remain at the bottom of Jamaican society.

When I am among Jamaicans I see full social interaction between Indo and Afro Jamaicans. I hear NONE of the animosity that I would hear about "brownings", Syrians and "Chinee".   And I know LOADS of Jamaicans!

In fact Indo KKK like you like to harass Indo Jamaicans because they don't have the anti black racism that you and the rest of your cabal do.

FM
caribny posted:
kp posted:
.

This is the first post I notice that you are not being biased.

So blinded in your Indo KKK racism because I refused to remain silent in the face of Indian racism that you failed to notice that I made similar comments BEFORE APNU and the AFC won the election.

What they have become confirmed my worst fears.

The Election was rigged, it wasn't won by. APNU/AFC

FM

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