What’s the Delay with Commission of Inquiry into Sugar Industry?
Prime Minister John Briceño
A Commission of Inquiry to look into the state of the sugar industry and how it can be modernized is yet to receive a start date, despite being given the green light by the Briceño administration several months ago. As we’ve reported earlier this week, the Belize Sugar Cane Farmers Association has said that the investigation is the only process that will allow the B.S.C.F.A. to move ahead with an agreement with A.S.R./B.S.I. So what is the hold up and is government dragging its feet with getting the inquiry underway? According to Prime Minister John Briceño, the commission of inquiry which he is tasked with appointing, is not being delayed on account of his administration.
Prime Minister John Briceño
“That’s exactly, that’s the exact thing, that we need to see how we can modernize the industry, how we can make the industry more profitable and again, I repeat, the Commission of Inquiry can’t go into the personal business of the cane farmers at BSCFA, nor BSI. The Commission of Inquiry is appointed by the government, by the prime minister actually, and then we try to come up, we have been asking all the players to give us some ideas as to what they want to see in the Commission of Inquiry and based on that we’re going to come up with the terms of reference to be able to move this forward. But this has, I want to put on record and I want to assure the cane farmers that it is not the government that’s holding this back and so we have been prepared to do this a long time ago. But some associations, and I don’t want to mention which ones in particular, continue to be changing the rules or continue to be changing their ask and that is why we have been holding back. But the important point to make is that the government is committed to setting up the Commission of Inquiry for us to be able to take a holistic look at the industry, how we can modernize it, how we can improve yields, how we can improve the production of sugarcane and what other possible byproducts can be produced to be able to make the industry a more profitable one for everyone.”
