Responding to Mark Archer

David Granger's mouth-piece, Mark Archer would like to have us believe that the PPP’s refusal to privatise sugar is all about race. And in his recent Kaieteur News letter captioned "GuySuCo is a reflection of Guyana; obsessed with race, stubbornly clinging to old methods” he hypocritically refused to point out that privatisation of sugar was an IMF demand from 1989. The IMF also demanded the massive downsizing of the Public Service at the time. Hoyte had already laid off thousands of Public Servants. The PPP government, declaring their concerns for the social impact of those layoffs, flatly refused. The IMF’s criticism of the PPP’s government for their stance is on the record that can be checked at any time.
On sugar, the PPP persuaded the IMF to reverse their demands. But it is in compliance with some of the demands of the IMF that sugar is in the straits it is in today. For insistence the IMF forbade investment in the Demerara factories and a cutback in field employment. Production in Demerara was always going to be a no-win situation.