NZ AID offers $2m for Fiji cane farmers

The New Zealand government’s international aid and development agency, NZAID, is preparing a $2 million relief package to assist stakeholders of Fiji’s sugar industry salvage the ailing industry.

Sugar Cane Growers Council (SCGC) chief executive Surendra Sharma confirmed to Fijilive that NZAID was now putting together a package though negative indications were received from the Australian government.

Sharma had written to the Australian and New Zealand governments, and the European Union (EU) seeking assistance to salvage the industry, which has been described to be dying a slow death.

“The NZ government has responded favourably and a $2 million facility for rehabilitation is being put together by NZAID, which they will announce when they are ready with all features of the programme,” Sharma said.

“We have not had any response from the EU and the door is therefore not completely shut,” he said.

As for Australia’s negative stand, he said it made sense from Australia’s point of view as they were competing sugar producers “and in a broader context, every tonne less of production by one competitor translates into a potential benefit for other producers”.

Asked whether the SCGC had also written to the interim Government on the issue, Sharma responded: “This is indeed a tricky question and depends on what really is meant by government as I suspect that most of the issues confronting the cane farmers are dealt with at bureaucratic level”.

“It would help greatly if there was better scrutiny at the highest level in government where better and more effective decisions can be made for resource mobilisation for the farmers` plight,” he said.

However, he added that the SCGC would continue to try and persuade the interim Government to find resources possibly from other non-traditional sources.

“Sugar needs a lot of assistance and the sooner the key decision makers acknowledge this fact, the better,” Sharma said.

“Sugar will obviously not collapse overnight but if it is not assisted correctly, the individual decisions of cane farmers will slowly but certainly decide the fate of this industry,” he said.

In an earlier interview, Sharma warned aid donors to front up now with badly needed assistance or face the consequences of salvaging a potentially bankrupt industry.

He said aid donors should take heed as they would all be implicated if the industry failed. He had said the sugar industry needed $60 million