Sugar industry to shed 3 bodies

Three institutions will soon be dissolved or wound down as part of reforms in the beleaguered sugar industry.

In its meeting last Tuesday, the Cabinet approved the reform of the Sugar Commission of Fiji (SCOF), the Fiji Sugar Marketing Company Limited (FSM) and the Sugar Research Institute of Fiji (SRIF)

Interim Prime Minister and Sugar Minister Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama said that the objective of the reform was to lighten the financial burden of the cane growers and the millers by dissolving SCOF and FSM.

“The SCOF will be dissolved and its functions, where appropriate, transferred to the Fiji Sugar Corporation Ltd (FSC), Sugar Cane Growers Council and Sugar Industry Tribunal, respectively,” he said in a statement.

“The FSM will be wound down and its assets, operations and functions transferred to the FSC.

“Furthermore, Section 4(d) of the SRIF Act 2005, which allows for the provision of extension services to cane growers by the SRIF, will now be assumed by the Fiji Sugar Corporation Limited.”

Bainimarama explained that the reform was a commercial decision taken in the interest of the industry, the nation and in particular for the 200,000 rural people who derive their livelihoods from the industry.

He said that the industry structure set up in the 1980s has outlived its usefulness and has become more of a burden.

He added that contributions to the industry are questionable.

“The returns to the farmers and millers from their 70:30 contributions in the funding of these institutions have been marginal,” he said.

He added that the mounting financial requests from the industry to Government for immediate and long term relief in all sorts of forms have strengthened Government’s resolve to proceed with the reforms in earnest.
source:fijilive