Ramesh pledges to stand up for former sugar workers

Former Attorney General Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj told former sugar workers and cane farmers Sunday he will fight to ensure that they get justice.

The Tabaquite MP was addressing of former Caroni (1975) workers at Carapichaima, Central Trinidad.

There are two major unresolved issues concerning the former workers who were put on the breadline when government shut down the country's sugar industry shortly after Patrick Manning became prime minister following the 2002 general election.

One is the matter of residential and agricultural land which was a part of the separation agreement between workers and the state. The other is investments guaranteed by the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB).

Maharaj said a special committee comprising lawyers and politicians will deal with all the outstanding issues and he promised to go the extra mile.

"I will go with you from as early as 6 am to those lands belonging to you...If it means we all get jailed then so be it!" he declared.

Maharaj said the European Community had provided the Manning administration with money to help displaced sugar workers get into alternative means of livelihoods but the government didn't do it.

He promised to raise the issue in Parliament and seek judicial review in the courts if parliament fails to act.

Maharaj also addressed the issue of people's investments and the refusal of the relevant authorities - the Unit Trust Corporation (UTC) and the ADB - to honour their commitment to pay interest on funds deposited as loan.

"The UTC and ADB are both Government funded institutions and Government can be compelled through legal actions to pay back the monies invested," Maharaj said.

When the sugar industry closed the workers were encouraged to invest their separation money into a fund administered by the ADB and the Unit Trust Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago (UTC).

When they made the investment six years ago they were promised substantial interest on the funds, but that has not been the case.

ADB's Chief Executive Officer, Jacqueline Rawlins, wrote the 3,200 former workers several months ago advising them that their deposits had failed to earn the projected interest due to the global financial crisis. As a result the Individual Retirement Unit Account (IRUA) that they held was unable to pay the interest, she said.

Read the story: Former sugar workers demand money...

With respect to lands promised to the former workers, government has still not provided the lands despite being ordered by a court judgment to do so.

Justice Lennox Deyalsingh, who is now retired, made the judgment on Dec. 7, 2007 ordering the government to grant leases to ex-Caroni (1975) Ltd workers for Caroni lands which were promised to them.

He set a June 30, 2008 for the two-acre agricultural plots to be leased to 7,900 displaced workers and ordered that “proper infrastructure, including access, drainage and irrigation facilities” be attached to each plot.

Read the story: Judge orders government to lease lands to former sugar workers

Government never honoured the commitment and refused to follow the court's order, choosing instead to appeal Deyalsingh's ruling on the basis that he was biased.

Read the story: PM's lawyer says Justice Deyalsingh's anti-PNM articles tainted judgment