Having faced the elements for some 75 days, none apart from People’s Progressive Party (PPP), would be of the conviction that our teachers are deserving of pittance. In fact, any who would make such an argument, likely to be unsuccessful, are certainly existing in the unsympathetic world of the PPP.
For our teachers, day in day out, make sacrifices and compromises, which include but not limited to, giving up their multi-year salary proposal 2019-2023. However, in so doing, compromising to the multi-year salary proposal 2024-2026, meant our already impoverished teachers were forgoing billions of dollars. And now having sacrificed billions, the installed government has added insult to collective injury in proposing, then ultimately signing, an imposed agreement of 8-10%.
But the fact is, the very PPP which now argues, they haven’t monies to pay our teachers, is the very PPP that vociferously proposed, when in opposition, that our teachers deserve nothing less than a 40– 50% salary increase. In fact, this vociferous argument by the duplicitous PPP, was made at the point when our country wasn’t flushed with the riches of Oil and Gas.
However, now the shoe is on the other foot, as our country is enriched with oil, the very PPP is to conveniently argue that there are no monies, to pay our teachers a liveable wage. And it’s with this argument, the deceitful PPP has paid our teachers a pittance 8-10%, leaving them worse off, when one factors in inflation and the skyrocketing cost-of-living.
However, the very PPP that is without monies to pay our teachers a liveable wage, is the very PPP that repeatedly funnel billions of dollars in subventions, into the Sugar Industry. But even as they finance the failed Sugar Industry, $44B in subventions over the past 4yrs, the Sugar Industry continues to record significant losses, to the tune of $20B for the years 2021 and 2022.
Moreover, even as the Sugar Industry faces successive years of economic losses, we the taxpayers are cognisant that these burdensome losses have been occurring for some two decades. Yet despite these decades of financial losses, with the outlook for this year extremely poor, the installed government continues their senseless rescuing endeavours, with a most recent $4B in supplementary financing. And even as the discriminatory PPP continues to finance the failed Sugar Industry, they would make the most asinine argument, of not having monies to pay our teachers.
Now having denied the teachers a liveable wage, whilst showing deference to the Sugar Industry, we are confronted by this 2024 economic review, which paints a harrowing picture of the industry. For the harrowing economic picture painted, is one of a Sugar Industry, which has significantly contracted economically by some 60.4%, in the first half of this fiscal year.
And this economic contraction, despite $44B in subventions, is underpinned by a paltry 6,739 tonnes of sugar production, also in the first half of this fiscal year. Thus, as a consequence of this continued decline in production, the obviously failed Sugar Industry had to drastically cut the annual production target, from 100,000 tonnes to 70,000 tonnes.
The fact is, this economic review evidence an irreversibly failed Sugar Industry, that has been failing for multiple decades. And being an irreversibly failed industry, with most if not all of the factories unprofitable, the wise undertaking should’ve been, to downsize and diversify. But despite facing these realities, and the obvious solutions, PPP continue their political policy of funnelling billions of dollars in subventions, into the irreversibly failed Sugar Industry.
Yet even as they squander billions of dollars into the irreversibly failed Sugar Industry, PPP would argue this most asinine case, monies aren’t available to pay our teachers. Thus, facing such blatant double standards, the obvious conclusion is, the Sugar Industry is receiving deferential treatment over our teachers, since it serves as a PPP 8000 strong vote machine.
