BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – A special committee would soon be established to examine the issues pertaining to the implementation of the EC$16M payout to former sugar workers and make recommendations to the Unity Government.
Dr. the Hon. Timothy Harris made this announcement yesterday (Apr. 2) at the National Emergency Management Agency Conference Room during his inaugural Prime Minister Monthly Press Conference.
“I want to say that since Monday we have been looking at how we are going to move forward with this particular initiative. And in order to deal with this matter, I have decided to put in place a Special Implementation Committee, and this Committee will be headed by Mr. Osbert De Suza in the Office of the Prime Minister.”
Prime Minister Harris declared that the Committee would also have a number of persons drawn from the Ministries of Agriculture and Finance, the Labour Commissioner, former managerial level workers of the St. Kitts Sugar Manufacturing Corporation, representatives from the former sugar workers “and such other specialist skills duly legal that will be required as we go about addressing this matter in a very transparent and fair way”.
He said that the Committee would be given three weeks to submit its first report to the Cabinet and all issues pertinent to the successful implementation of the important initiative.
“To the former sugar workers who have been aggrieved, we have started to address your needs and we are doing what the Government before failed to do. And it failed to do it not withstanding it had on record letters from hundreds of former sugar workers who had asked for a revisit of their particular circumstances and that justice will prevail in their case,” Dr. Harris said.
In response to a question of those former sugar workers who have since passed away, Dr. Harris declared that their estate would benefit from the payout.
“Those who have died, the Attorney-General said to me that we have a legal advisor on the team, but we are thinking now is that their estate basically will be the beneficiary with respect to that and that we will make claim. So with respect to somebody who died, yes, the money will still be there but we can’t just be saying we will give it to Jason Browne, because Jason Browne has a brother too, and a sister too. So there will have to be some kind of agreement between them in relation to the management of their affairs.”
He also addressed payment to those non-nationals who were employed by the SSMC, especially those who are not residing in the Federation.
“With respect to the non-nationals, of course we are going to be fair for all and there will be some good precedent as how we will deal with instances of persons who have gone. Let’s hope that the absence from the country does not prevent the evidence in support of their claim from being available.”
On Monday (Mar. 30), the Team Unity Government had received an EC$16M grant from the Government of Venezuela under the Petro Caribe initiative, for which the Prime Minister said is to assist in paying former sugar industry workers.
“On Monday, the good Government of Venezuela, thanks to El Presidente Maduro, provided us with EC$16 million to assist in paying our former sugar industry workers. This will help us to correct a wrong that has been ignored for too long. And this sum of money allows us to bring a sense of justice and closure to many of these former sugar workers here. And I am advised by an article written by Conway that we also have aggrieved workers in the sister island of Guyana. All these workers feel cheated from their view and compassionate support in the 2005 settlement by the former regime.”
The Prime Minister stressed that an injustice was done to the former sugar workers, many of whom he noted are still owed from the 2005 EC$28M payout, which he claimed should have been EC$44M.
“…Ten years later, too many former sugar workers are still owed. Some hungry, some without any savings in their account or even a memento to show that they gave back-breaking labour that was exacting to them and their families in terms of its demand for their labour and skill and time. That industry, for example, took 55 years of the life of Chemical Wilson and 55 years of the best years of Joseph Hercules. A sensitive and caring Government must have known what Joe Hercules had proclaimed on his death bed at JNF…‘The Government rob us. Nobody got to tell me that they done me an injustice.’ Joe Hercules died with a heavy heart.”
He said that, yesterday (Apr. 2), the Team Unity had come to breathe the life of hope and justice into the minds of the former sugar workers and the country at large, and that “we have turned a new page and we are righting the wrong done to the least and the meek of the earth, our former sugar workers”.
In addition to media representatives, among those present at the Press Conference were representative of the Venezuelan Embassy, Premier Van Amory and Cabinet members as well as a group of former sugar workers.
