‘None of you will be beggars or paupers’ – Broomes tells retrenched sugar workers

“None of you will be beggars or paupers,” was the declaration of Junior Minister of Natural Resources, Simona Broomes who first addressed hundreds of workers who were retrenched from the Enmore Estate at a meeting Friday morning.

In a boisterous presentation, she assured workers that the Government is willing to listen to them as “solutions” are being sought following the closure of the estate, the only one that operated on the East Coast of Demerara.

The workers, anxious for their severance pay, grumbled intermittently during the Minister’s presentation.

“You will get your money; it is just a matter of time and that time is soon,” she declared.

Broomes acknowledged that the workers were “hurt, confused and hopeless.”

At one point, she shouted to the workers: “You think it is easy to discuss severance?”

Broomes said that the Enmore factory was the first she inspected when she was appointed a Minister following the May 2015 general elections; she said what she saw was an estate that was run down and the price for producing sugar outweighed what it was being sold for.

“How I felt then I feel the same way now. I was sad then and I am sad now,” she stated.

She said the Government was willing to listen to the concerns of workers.

“Your pain is real and your concern is real,” Broomes declared.

News Room will keep you updated as the meeting develops.

See previous story here: https://admin.newsroom.gy/2018/01/26/enmore-workers-protest-ahead-of-meeting-with-ministers/