LETTER OF THE DAY - Studying sugar to death
Published:Thursday | June 10, 2010 | 12:00 AM
THE EDITOR, Sir:
AS A SUGAR worker, I am concerned about the announcement of a three-man commission mandated by Dr Christopher Tufton, minister of agriculture and fisheries, to "review and make recommendations on changes to the current regulatory, institutional and pricing arrangements in the sector", and to chart the future of the local industry.
I wonder if the minister is serious. While I believe the sugar industry can offer levels of employment that will enable a few of us to keep our heads above the water, in the absence of few alternatives, we must not waste any more money on these flatulent studies.
Shortly before leaving office, then Prime Minister P.J. Patterson carried out the most extensive and comprehensive study on the industry known as the Report on The Strategic Options and Recommendations for the Sustainable Future of the Jamaican Sugar Industry. This report is somewhere gathering dust, no doubt.
The sugar industry is in the state that it is in not because it lacks studies and recommendations, Dr Tufton; it is in this perilous state because, like all government-dominated industry, it has been overrun by partisan political managers and because of corruption. Where are the technocrats who boasted about the industry needing good management, but pursued ruinous policies which decimated the industry?
Dr Tufton is clearly one of the successes of this underperforming administration and should be supported, but we need to keep him straight and credible.
The sugar industry has been studied to death. What we now need to do in going forward is simply to sell the factories and stop wasting time and money that the country clearly doesn't have and cannot afford.
I am, etc.,
Mark Clarke