PM Briceño Reiterates Position on Sugar Industry Inquiry

The Belize Sugar Cane Farmers Association is yet to enter into a new commercial agreement with B.S.I., despite a date for the start of the new sugar crop being set tentatively for December fifteenth.  In a press conference held last week, the B.S.C.F.A. maintained that the only way to move past the logjam between the association and the miller is by proceeding with a commission of inquiry.  That commission would be empanelled by the prime minister, but what would be its primary charge?  Here’s what PM Briceño reiterated.

Prime Minister John Briceño

Prime Minister John Briceño

“What we’ve been trying to explain to this association in particular, [is that] the Commission of Inquiry will only come with recommendations on how we can modernize the industry.  It does not necessarily mean how you’re going to give more to the farmers or more to BSI, and we’re going to bring in experts, some from Mauritius, and then there’s another group, I think, out of Brazil that we’re looking at, to come in and take a look at how it is that can improve our efficiencies.  How can we improve our planting practices, you know, our harvesting practices, our delivery practices, the mill.  Are there any ways they can improve their productivity and how it can reduce the cost.  Pretty much that’s what they are going to do.  They’re not going to come and say, well you have to take away their… the farmers are getting too much and you have to give it to BSI, or BSI is getting too much, we have to give it to the farmers.  That’s not what the commission of inquiry is going to do.  They need to understand that the commission is going to find a way how we can modernize and at the end of the day that all of us can win.”