Whither Caroni?

By Bukka Rennie
March 29, 2003

It was always clear that we had to get out of sugar. But how many of us recognise that the very first salvo in the social transformation of the landscape of Caroni was the placing there of the Point Lisas Industrial Estate? It tells us how disjointed our vision of our own development remains.

It began with the establishment of a steel plant, then it moved heavily into the manufacturing of petro-chemicals, with the intention that such development would lead to the possibilities of numerous down-stream industries covering the very wide spectrum of services required by necessity in such a modern environment.

One recalls that Eric Williams went ballistic when the US tried to force T&T to limit the production line of Iscott to sponge-iron rather than finished steel billets and rods. Williams' angry words still ring poignantly: "What do they want us to do, stay here and pitch marbles?"

The very same community leaders of Caroni who today shout "racism" and "insensitivity" at the very thought of the restructuring of the sugar industry are the self-same ones who yesteryear labelled Point Lisas "a massive white elephant".

But the young people of Caroni, after a while, moved swiftly into the Point Lisas Estate, acquiring new productive skills in both the mainstream and service sectors. Young labour that would have readily moved into sugar, moved out into the more attractive environment of Point Lisas.

Today both Chaguanas and Couva comprise the fastest developing area in the whole of T&T with corporate bankers intoning that probably 65 per cent of every locally invested dollar is being spent in this very area. The blind leaders could not connect then and are still unable to connect.

In a past column the following comment was made: "...underdevelopment is the cultural inability to comprehend process, the inability to comprehend the connectivity between implementation, ie implementation of infrastructure, implementation of sustainable programmes, and maintenance, resulting in a related failure to write into every stage of development a schedule of obsolescence.

"That is why Caroni Ltd is today a cultural disaster. We held fast, with great vigour and blindness, to the colonial mindset of seeking forever preferential treatment and guaranteed markets rather than break away from the old structures. We stayed with the produce-for-export syndrome instead of linking sugar production to domestic consumption and industrial/commercial needs, and instead of diversifying from top to bottom. What are we now to tell those dinosaurs hell-bent on preserving the sugar industry that virtually died centuries ago.

"...Caribbean civilisation as we know began with the sugar plantation and any transformation of this civilisation must begin with the break-up of the old plantation socio-economic structures and relationships. For decades and decades we have been fighting to rationalise and centralise the sugar industry rather than break it up.

"In 1900, 88 sugar factories were reduced to 39. Yet the problem persisted. By 1928, trough a process of absorption and amalgamation, the 39 factories were reduced to 12... And even back then one analyst would warn the planters '...sugar production in the colonies is more a political gamble than an economic proposition...'"

Since then what has changed? The 12 factories have been reduced to two: Brechin Castle and Usine. We are still depending on guarantees now from the EU, guarantees that will cease to exist in 2005. For what are we waiting?

After $6 billion in accumulated loses, we are fiddling. This finally is the end of the line. Makes no sense to sit and lament like the cane cutter who when interviewed said: "...leave to go where, to do what, this is all I know!"

Granted it is only human and natural to be scared of the unknown. The Government has indicated, as did all the numerous studies and plans put forward over the years, that the restructuring of the industry will see cane cultivation being handed over entirely to independent farmers.

Cane farming is not entirely an unknown quantity to sugar workers. From my experience as an activist in the sugar belt in the early and mid seventies, I am quite aware that there are many sugar workers who double as small cane-farmers or hire themselves out to the big and medium-size cane-farmers.

Research should have been done to identify and quantify this stratum of people who can certainly be key in piloting the restructuring programme.

The other factor is that the sugar crop is seasonal, six months of the year, and cultivation workers have to utilise other means of survival in the off-season. What traditionally have been the chosen means of survival?

The Government needs to look at this and seek to make soft financing available to those who may wish to develop these usual areas of involvement. The idea is that both sides must cease to be obstructionist in any way and try to facilitate the flow towards whatever is most obvious.

In the '70s it was accepted that there were some 10,000 sugar workers, and that included Orange Grove, and each worker had on average three dependents, so the then touted total amount of people directly dependent on Caroni Ltd was 30,000. Now we are hearing that the figure is 300,000. That appears to be pure emotional posture. Even if one were to include the cane-farmers in the mix.

The most important factor that must be noted however is that the diversification of Caroni with its 70,000 acres of land cannot be separate from a national land reform programme. A land policy must be put forward for intensive debate immediately.

We must demand that the transformation of Caroni and the sugar belt must be seated in this context. Caroni is a national asset. It does not belong to any one set of people and it matters not how long anyone worked there.

The most valuable material resource of any country is its land base, and land use is the fundamental consideration in the process of social development. Land is the most natural basis of wealth generation and accumulation and if there is to be unity no one must be left out of the loop.

When we talking Caroni, we have to be also talking Wallerfield, Chaguaramas-Tucker Valley, Caura, etc, even the massive acreage of lands falling under the purview of Petrotrin. If we breaking with the old structure, then we must have the vision and the belly to break completely.