At Long Last, A Sugar Industry Commission of Inquiry

The first set of hearings for the Commission of Inquiry into the Sugar Cane Industry commences on August twenty-seventh and will run through to the thirty-first.  The stakeholders that have been called for the public hearings in the north include Belize Sugar Industries Limited, Belize Sugar Cane Farmers Association, Corozal Sugar Cane Farmers Association, Progressive Sugar Cane Farmers Association, as well as the Northern Sugar Cane Farmers Association.  News Five spoke by phone with Hugh O’Brien, chair of the Commission of Inquiry.

 

On the phone: Hugh O’Brien, Lead Coordinator, Commission of Inquiry

“The Commission of Inquiry has reached the stage where it’s having hearings and the public hearings commence tomorrow, Tuesday, August twenty-seventh, and will run from Tuesday to Saturday this week, Escuela Secundaria Mexico Conference Room.  The following week, the public hearings will move to the Ministry of Agriculture Conference Room at the [National] Agriculture and Trade Show Grounds in Belmopan.  Hearings are going to be streamed live on the Government of Belize’s press office page and the press: the TV, radio, newspapers, and online agencies are allowed to attend.  All the hearings are recorded and be there to see how the discussions go.  These hearings are following the first visit that these commissioners made to Belize and, by the way, these commissioners come from different parts of the world.  There’s one from South Africa, there’s one from the United Kingdom, from Mauritius, three of them, and there is a local commissioner as well.  These commissioners came to Belize earlier this year and they met with the stakeholders.  They met with them and received presentations from these stakeholders, they visited field operations of farmers in the north, from the cane farmers associations, as well as from BSI.  They visited the plant at BSI and then in the western part of the country, they visited Santander Farms and their production systems and they also visited the Santander sugar factory here in western Belize.  So the commissioners now, following that set of visits that they had.  They requested specific information from the stakeholders, asked them specific questions and so stakeholders were allowed to make submissions and even made a public release asking for anybody who wants to make submissions to be able to do that by providing their email address and so forth.  So that information, quite a bit of information has come in to the commissioners, they are reviewing that information.  These hearings now are staged in a way that the commissioners will take the knowledge and understanding of Belize’s industry, take that knowledge that they have and they will interact, and ask and clarify key clarifications from the different parties that are going to come to the hearings and answer those questions.”