More than 600 direct jobs in the bauxite industry were lost between 2015 and 2020 when the APNU+AFC coalition was in government, President Dr. Irfaan Ali said Monday night.
And according to him, the loss of jobs was only part of the ills the sector grappled with during that period.
President Ali and Finance Minister Dr. Ashni Singh spoke about the sector during a live broadcast on Facebook. In that virtual engagement, Dr. Ali and Dr. Singh both opined that the APNU+AFC coalition virtually decimated the local bauxite industry.
President Ali, armed with a PowerPoint presentation replete with figures of the industry’s performance overtime, shared that there were about 1,200 persons employed in the sector in 2014. That was the People’s Progressive Party Civic’s (PPP/C) last full year in office.
But by 2020, Dr. Ali said only about 600 persons were directly employed. That meant roughly half of the workers in the industry lost their jobs.
Further, he pointed out that the industry had its sharpest production decline during the 2015 to 2020 period.
Now, however, the Head of State assured Guyanese that the PPP/C government was working to guarantee that this sector is revitalised. And he posited that the sector should expand by about 60% this year.
Dr. Singh outlined some of the government’s plans for the industry. He pointed out that the BOSAI Minerals Group recently commissioned a US$115M Kiln #15 and Maz Project at Linden, Region Ten. This, he said, is the first Kiln built in Linden since the 1970s and that is expected to create about 1,000 jobs.
“We are looking at other investments to make it viable for Guyana to get back into alumina production.
“(There are) conversations about new bauxite production in the Berbice river to resume mining that ore,” Dr. Singh highlighted too.
Meanwhile, both the Head of State and Finance Minister spoke about the sugar industry and the PPP/C government’s plan for the sector.
Revitalising the sugar sector has been a huge focus on the government since returning to office in 2020. Doing so was part of the promises made to citizens ahead of the March 2020 General and Regional Elections.
The Rose Hall Estate in Berbice was reopened last year and hundreds of persons have so far been rehired. President Ali, however, noted that the government wants to guarantee that sugar workers are also trained so they can be empowered to enhance their livelihoods and earn more.
“We are not saying sugar is not a challenge. This is a major challenge for us but we are committed to ensuring that we succeed,” President Ali said.
