HGP Nightly News – APNU Parliamentarian Dr. Terrence Campbell is claiming that reports of Jamaican workers being brought into Guyana to cut cane, point to a deeper labour crisis in the sugar industry, and cast doubt on the Government’s narrative that the sector is on the road to recovery. According to Campbell, if the industry were truly being revived in a meaningful and sustainable way, it would not allegedly be struggling to attract enough local labour from the very communities that have historically depended on sugar for generations.
Campbell argued that the reported use of foreign labour raises serious questions about the state of an industry that continues to receive substantial public support each year. He said this development suggests that despite official claims of progress, deeper structural problems remain unresolved. In his view, the fact that workers are allegedly being sourced from outside Guyana to cut cane reflects continued instability in the sector rather than the success story the Government has sought to present.
Against that backdrop, Campbell pushed back against the long-standing PPP argument that the APNU+AFC government caused widespread devastation in the sugar industry. He claimed that while the opposition has repeatedly been blamed for the dismissal of some 7,000 sugar workers and the wider impact those terminations allegedly had on between 30,000 and 35,000 people, including shop owners and small businesses, the truth is that the industry’s decline did not begin under the coalition. According to Campbell, concerns about sugar’s future were being raised as far back as the late 1950s, and the APNU+AFC administration merely confronted a crisis that had been building for decades.
He further claimed that the coalition government took what he described as a bold approach in trying to address the challenges facing the industry, while accusing the PPP of failing to fully acknowledge its own past role in the closure of sugar estates. Campbell said the political blame now being placed on APNU+AFC ignores a much longer and more complicated history of decline, mismanagement and difficult decisions within the sector.
The opposition parliamentarian also argued that the current situation is especially significant because the sugar industry is based largely in what is considered PPP heartland. He said that many of the same communities that have long been tied to sugar are now allegedly turning away from the sector, despite the Government’s continued efforts to portray it as being revived. In Campbell’s view, that contradiction weakens the Government’s position and raises fresh doubts about whether the industry is truly offering workers a viable future.
Campbell also pointed to the billions of dollars in subsidies being poured into sugar each year, claiming that heavy state support has still not solved the sector’s most serious challenges. He suggested that if the industry were functioning as advertised, it would not allegedly be facing labour shortages or needing to look beyond Guyana’s workforce to keep operations going. That, he argued, is the clearest sign yet that the problems in sugar run far deeper than the Government is willing to admit.
He also referred to what he described as an explosive interview with sugar workers, in which troubling claims were reportedly made about working and living conditions. Campbell said those accounts painted an alarming picture of the treatment of labour in the industry and, according to him, added another serious layer to the ongoing concerns surrounding sugar. Those claims remain politically charged and are likely to intensify scrutiny of the sector as debate continues over whether the Government’s strategy is actually restoring sugar or simply sustaining an industry still facing major unresolved problems.
Campbell’s comments are likely to fuel renewed political debate over the true state of Guyana’s sugar industry. While the Government has maintained that it stepped in to rescue the sector after coalition-era closures, Campbell is now claiming that the reported use of Jamaican labour, combined with continued subsidies and questions about worker interest, points not to recovery, but to an industry that remains deeply troubled.
