PPP supports reopening of sugar estates

Former President and Opposition Leader, Bharrat Jagdeo on Thursday asserted that he has received information that an assessment done by the Special Purpose Unit (SPU) on the closed Sugar estates suggests that the facilities were viable.

“…and so, if this is true and I hope the media will ask them … it would be very disturbing, because we believed this to be so, but we asked our Government to do a feasibility study of these estates and the industry before it took any decision to send home workers and they refused to do that,” he said during a press conference at his office on Thursday.

According to Jagdeo, the firing of over 7000 sugar workers has now created enormous problems for families and households across the country, especially in rural areas and for another study to be conducted to reveal that “these estates, with small injection of funds, could have been viable would be criminal.”

Moreover, he posited that if his information is proven to be true, then his Party –the People’s Progressive Party- will be in support of having all of these estates re-opened.