Karen: EU $350m not for farmers

Finance Minister Karen Nunez-Tesheira stated yesterday that the $350 million European Union grant funding, to which many are claiming the cane farmers are entitled, was not for their financial support, but was to provide the country with budget support because of the loss of an industry.

’It (the grant) was not made to the particular group of persons. But, in any event, if one were to argue that..cane farmers should benefit from economic support.. I do believe that through the $7.7 billion which Government spent on retraining former Caroni workers, in providing them with leases, in providing them with agricultural and residential lands and enhanced pension...Government has shown its commitment and compassion to cane farmers.’

She revealed that $2.2 million had been disbursed in August 2009 and the second tranche of $3.6 million is to be given in early 2010.

The Finance Minister was speaking in the Senate yesterday on the debate on a motion filed by UNC Senator Jennifer Jones-Kernahan asking the Government to take immediate steps to access the funds from the European Union and disburse them to the former cane farmers of Caroni (1975) Ltd.

Nunez-Tesheira said the Government recognised that employment in Caroni was not just a job, but a way of life. Despite 30 years of consistent losses, Government persevered with the industry, twice bailing it out - in 1990 at a cost of $2.2 billion and 2001 at a cost of $2.3 billion.

Secretary general of the Cane Producers Association, Seukeran Tambie, however, countered that the ’EU, in its wisdom, recognised that those people who would be affected were not only the cane farmers, but the communities from which they came’.

Quoting from Regulation 66 of the European Parliament and Council which dealt with the grant, he said it was to being given to promote economic diversification of sugar-dependent areas and to deal with the broader aspects of the adaptation process related to the social, environmental and community and area-based issues. In piloting the motion, Jones-Kernahan accused Government of perpetrating a ’cynical’, ’wicked’, ’shameless’, ’cruel hoax’ on the workers.

She said Government never intended take any of the steps required for diversification of the sugar industry. In fact she noted 500 acres of land promised to Caroni workers had gone to Essar Steel, which has since ’fled in disarray’.

However Independent Senator Corrine Baptiste-McKnight said Government was more magnanimous with Caroni workers, than it was with other categories of workers in the public service. Therefore, she said, she had a problem with sitting and listening to people’s hearts bleed with respect to Caroni workers while BWIA, WASA, Port, PTSC, Post Office workers, librarians when NALIS was formed, among others, were not afforded the same generous terms as Caroni workers.

Noting that some were implying that Caroni workers were hard done by, McKnight said: ’Fair is fair and that can’t be fair.’

source: trinidadexpress