THE AUDACITY OF LEROY PARRIS, claiming that since the freezing of $4.5 million of his $20 million assets, he can’t meet living and business expenses. The Prime Minister allegedly gave advice to the Speaker recently. I wonder if he offered any to his pal Mr Parris?
I certainly can’t advise him, but if I were in a similar position I would be hiding in the nearest hole, thanking my lucky stars that Bajans have traditionally been peaceful and hoping they remain so.
June Fowler’s fears that the resolution to the CLICO saga might be derailed by certain alleged and sometimes acknowledged friendships are well founded. And to those who don’t see why Government is becoming involved, have they forgotten that successive governments failed in their regulatory function?
Now to the sugar money: Another promise but until farmers have the cheques in hand, they continue to live in hope.
And, in response to questions asked of me in the Saturday Sun, I wasn’t aware I defended the “sugar planter class”, whoever they are, but I’ve defended and will continue to defend the sugar cane industry and agriculture in general, and those who are committed to its success. Success depends not only on the field aspect, mostly owned by private farmers, but also on the processing aspect owned by Government.
As far as I know, farmers plan to improve yields (of sugar rather than cane per acre) by using slow release fertilisers and improving soil biological characteristics, decrease costs and increase efficiency by testing various labour-saving machines and methods like strip tillage and monitor sugar output per acre from various variety/soil combinations, while seeking a fair price for their product.
I don’t understand what’s meant by “what has been done to keep production going year round”. Cane is planted around October and reaped 16 to 18 months later. Ratoons are harvested, grown for 12 months and harvested again. All this, of course, depending on when the powers that be allow harvest to start – which in fact has been another cause of the industry’s demise. Owners have diversified their farms by growing and processing vegetables, which keeps labour employed year round.
Reducing processing costs is Government’s responsibility. What I’ve never understood is why sugar costs $4 100 per tonne. Farmers supply the raw material (cane). If it takes say 11 tonnes of cane to make a tonne of sugar and farmers up to now have been paid $60 per tonne, that’s $660 in raw material. Can the Barbados Agricultural Management Company (BAMC) account for the remaining $3 440? Is it part of the $2 million per week needed to run BAMC?
The acreage sold by plantations for development over the past 40 years is considerable, but the Town & Country Planning Department is better able to give an accurate figure and say why it gave permission. I’ve often commented on greedy developers, masquerading as farmers, seemingly running land into bush to make a case for development. Interestingly, there’s a farmer on one side of a particular road claiming agriculture doesn’t pay, and on the other side of the same road one who is a role model in agriculture.
Should the Barbados Foundry and Plantations Ltd have been investigated? Maybe investigations are still going on, based on the speed at which CLICO’s investigation is happening.
While some money Government took from the industry went towards pensions for those not eligible for NIS pensions, the majority was used for reasons totally unrelated to the industry.
Regarding treatment of plantation workers over the past 50 years, these years coincide with independent Barbados. Are you saying that the “colonial masters” treated agricultural workers better? Interestingly, about 70 plantations were owned by descendants of slaves since the 1940s. I agree that agricultural workers don’t enjoy the comforts of many other workers, and I’ve always admired their resilience under trying weather conditions, but rural people are more resilient, and in fact part of the industry’s problem is that there’s an increase in “urbanised workers” with no tradition in agriculture.
I’ll conclude by paying tribute to Leslie, an outstanding worker who has recently emigrated to the US. If all workers in the industry possessed his talent and work ethic, agriculture in Barbados would be miles ahead.
http://www.nationnews.com/nationnews/news/64021/worth-parris
Dr Frances Chandler is a former Independent senator. Email fchandler@caribsurf.com
128 responses to “Sugar Monies Paid on a Promise”
There was a time when it was no need for any of the planter class in Barbados to obtain a Drivers Licence. All the Master or Mistress , had to do was to be dressed and walked down the great house steps, and before they got to the bottom, the shiny black plantation sedan car would be there waiting for them, with the doors opened by the peak capped, khaki uniformed ,chauffeur , who would drive them wherever they commanded him to.
Very often we in Barbados ask the question, why are they no members of the planter class in the local police force? The actions of the great house search party last weekend, has made our police and defence force to appear , like the plantation chauffeur.
@ Miller
If they have not yet received their monies promised since January there must be a “genuine” reason for the delay.
Everything is now due to a computer fault. Maybe this is the reason for the late payment to the farmers.
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I understand that when the Cheques are ready, they will be delivered expressly, by Drones, Pony Express, and SUV Ropers.
@ Colonel Buggy March 3, 2015 at 5:22 PM
“The actions of the great house search party last weekend, has made our police and defence force to appear , like the plantation chauffeur.”
Funny indeed. Nothing new here. The plantation old mistresses had a way of slipping away with the same sweet-skin bucky coachie (chauffeur) once he was ‘well-hung’.
The entire black official posse financed primarily by black taxpayers was out on the trail looking not for a runaway slave like themselves but a bored white woman who slipped away for a night of pleasure.
Can you Colonel explain why no one yet has been charged for the act of kidnapping since it seems the woman was held against her “WILL”?
But you should know from your European travels that a moment of white ecstasy can feel like a full length of black eternity.
@Vincent
You heard the date?
March 23, 2015
On 3 March 2015 at 22:08, Barbados Underground wrote:
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@ David March 3, 2015 at 6:27 PM
“March 23, 2015”
Is that the date for the start of the crop? The farmers need to be paid at least 2 weeks prior to that date. Have the farmers received any money promised since January or does it take 2 months to sort out the paper work in electronically sophisticated Barbados? Or is the PM telling lies again on his MoF?
Based on news reports payments were released today.
@Colonel Buggy March 3, 2015 at 5:22 PM #
As rightly stated in the opening article melanin rich individuals owned plantations and slaves,going back to London Bourne……this melanin thing is a real killer for Bim,when truth be told it is all about classissim practised by all variations of melanin…..live with it ,your family practises it like everybody elses…..note I do not know you……
@ Miller & David
We shall see
@Miller
Can you Colonel explain why no one yet has been charged for the act of kidnapping since it seems the woman was held against her “WILL”?
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Not if the “kidnapper’ is an untouchable like Leroy Parris or the Bridgetown merchants’s son who imported a container load of weed.
Vincent Haynes March 3, 2015 at 9:12 PM #
@Colonel Buggy March 3, 2015 at 5:22 PM #
…..live with it ,your family practises it like everybody elses…..note I do not know you…
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You are so right ,we see it every day. The school you went to. The place you live. The car you drive . The job you hold. The friends you keep. The money you brag about.
A young Welshman once told me that many many years ago , he and his family came down to the Caribbean on a cruise. His father he said, was a Miner, who like plantation workers living in the tenantry here, lived in a tied cottage . He could not believe it, when the cruise ship hit the Caribbean waters , his father immediately transformed into a Colonial Master, treating the natives in a similar fashion as his British predecessors .
@Vincent . An interesting piece
http://www.vox.com/2015/2/28/8116799/white-colorism-racism-study
Miller
The woman Chandler confirmed today that the farmers have been paid their ‘sweets’ but the Government of Barbados.
@Colonel Buggy March 3, 2015 at 11:06 PM #
…..let the dead bury the dead……we should learn from the past and ensure we do not repeat or allow to be repeated the iniquities of the past……
We must ensure we do not wallow in it and move forward in our efforts to build this little island that we all love…
Back to Cane……seems to be deafening silence as to what is happening……all we have heard is “a proposed start on the 23 Marc”…..I wonder if the steam trials have been done already?
It is difficult to see the sugar apparatus mobilizing bin two weeks. Good luck!
On Wednesday, 4 March 2015, Barbados Underground wrote:
>
David
You all that river tamarind the GOB got growing in the Belle?
What is the time for replenishment / rotation of river tamarind?
It takes 2 years for the RT to mature for harvesting but its being going in rotation so it will be harvested ever 12 months.
From what I understand the RT biomass conversion to electricity is what is going to actually generate the majority of the income for the cane restructuring industry project.
@David March 4, 2015 at 7:08 AM #
Todays article says cheques recvd………some matters still to be resolved…….we shall see.
Vincent
Don’t worry too much about that, you doubted they would get paid…………but they have been PAID. Matters to be resolved?…………..these are like the hoteliers, no matter what they ask for, what they are given, its NEVER, EVER going to be enough. These are professional beggars.
@ Stephen McLeash March 4, 2015 at 10:33 AM #
“From what I understand the RT biomass conversion to electricity is what is going to actually generate the majority of the income for the cane restructuring industry project.”
We have heard all that shit before going back 30 years. Why must Bajans continue to swallow the swill of lies? Any project can look real good on paper but the question is how will it be financed.
You have called the sugar cane farmers and hoteliers “professional beggars”.
But would you agree the current administration is also full of ‘Professional Liars’?
How else would you explain the following statement of “Truth”?
“This administration has however designed, and successfully sought financing to advance, a major restructuring of the industry over the next three years, starting next year, in what is the Barbados Cane Industry Project.
Funding for this exercise (which will see the re-engineering of an existing sugar factory so as to allow it to engage multiple applications, including the production of bio-mass for the co-generation of electricity) has been agreed with the Japanese Bank of International Corporation and Japanese commercial banks for up to US270 million dollars.”
The above statement of “truth” clearly undermines your understanding of what this project going back donkey and mule cart years is all about. Show us the money and we will swallow your swill.
But being a professional twister of words you might have a different meaning to the words “Successfully” and “has been agreed”.
So funny..Seems that the Govt actually making a payment as promised is a cause for celebration, this is such a rare occurrence nowadays that we should be jumping up with joy? How about a Bank Holiday to celebrate this momentous occasion.
redman………the government is damned if they do, damned if they don’t. Last week everyone was betting the farmers won’t be paid, now that them been paid people like you got to find something negative to say.
@ Norst the Invader March 4, 2015 at 2:22 PM
That’s what you get for being a habitual liar. Nobody should trusts you or rely on anything you say.
So what about the tax refunds? After all, they are not welfare payments or subsidies to “professional beggars”. Just a repayment of a short-term “loan” to government. Now who is the professional lying swindler?
How about that, damned you!
Stephen McLeash March 4, 2015 at 8:13 AM #
David
You all that river tamarind the GOB got growing in the Belle?
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Noticed it for the first time today
http://imgur.com/XXl9GBU
@ Norst the invader
Yuh gotta admit that this is a very bad situation for a government to find itself in…
shiite man…. no one believes nothing that you say…????
In a more enlightened dispensation such a government would take a gentle hint like that as a massive vote of no confidence (no trust) and excuse itself from the distrusting people’s employment.
..unless of course there are more pressing overriding circumstances …such as qualifying for pensions; incomplete “commission payments”; and other “personal matters” to be completed first…
Bushie continues to be amazed that clearly incompetent persons continue to to seek and hold leadership positions PURELY in search of the benefits attached, knowing full well that they can’t mark fat.
Wuh even if they were foolish enough to have thought that it was easy wuk at first, SURELY after it becomes clear that they are PISS POOR at it …they would bow out gracefully and allow someone else to try for the collective society’s sake….
The most basic requirement of leadership at any level is TRUST.
Bushie,
Man since you start swallowing these instant PLUTO tablets…..you got me frighten ya…..touche’. Trust is every thing, got that right!
Continue the comments here:
https://barbadosunderground.wordpress.com/2015/03/04/cane-industry-restructuring-project-cirp-and-river-tamarind/