The government is preparing to make an announcement on the future of the sugar industry, Barbados TODAY can reveal.
The announcement comes as frustration among sugar industry employees reaches a critical point, following the collapse of a major cooperative initiative, and after mounting pressure from unions demanding long-promised benefits for the workers.
“When I’m ready to speak to the public, I will, but I’m not going to pre-empt what I have to say by just giving snippets of what is yet to come,” said Minister of Agriculture Indar Weir, signalling that an outline of the industry’s next phase should be forthcoming. He was speaking on the sidelines of a tour of the Mount Gay Distillery in St Lucy on Wednesday.
The Barbados Workers’ Union (BWU) has made a call for urgent clarity on the future of the restructured sugar industry and the long-promised benefits to workers. The union maintains that commitments for former and current sugar workers — particularly those who toiled in the cane fields — to gain part-ownership under a cooperative model have yet to be fulfilled.
BWU Deputy General Secretary Dwaine Paul told Barbados TODAY earlier this week that worker frustration had reached a critical point.
The union’s push for answers follows the collapse of the Co-op Energy arrangement with the government in August, an initiative originally designed to establish a new cooperative framework for the industry while ensuring benefits and ownership stakes for workers.
The latest developments stem from a failed attempt to transfer control of the sugar industry to a cooperative-run private partnership. The initiative began with a Memorandum of Understanding in March 2023, aiming to pass the state-owned Barbados Agricultural Management Company’s (BAMC) sugar assets to two new companies — ABC Ltd, for farmland, and BESCO (Barbados Energy and Sugar Company) for the lone mill, Portvale — with Co-op Energy and worker shareholdings.
Tensions emerged when Co-op Energy, led by its president, Lieutenant Colonel Trevor Browne, who also chairs BESCO, was accused by BAMC and Weir of failing to produce $16.5 million in investment capital, a requirement for the deal’s execution.
Lt Col Browne insisted Co-op Energy would not advance funds without audited records and full asset details. He claimed that repeated requests for financial disclosures were ignored by BAMC and the ministry.
Originally, the deal promised a groundbreaking model that would give current and former sugar workers a 45 per cent share in the restructured industry; however, this was later reduced to 20 per cent in subsequent negotiations.
The collapse of the partnership has left more than 1 100 workers and retirees without the promised ownership, and renewed industry uncertainty and union protests for clarity and compensation.
sheriabrathwatie@barbadostoday.bb
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