B.S.C.F.A. Official Addresses Sugar Commission

The Commission of Inquiry into the sugar industry heard from Chief Executive Officer of the Belize Sugar Cane Farmers Association, Oscar Alonzo today. He told the Commission that since the formula for the payment of sugarcane was first derived in 1966, there has not been any kind of agreement on the part of cane farmers that the formula ensures they are getting their fair share of the profits. Alonzo pointed to the contention, distrust and divisiveness that has developed between the investor and producers and he expressed hope that the inquiry can lead to having an industry working with greater unification and harmony. He said that the sugar industry regulations have served a purpose in the past, but that there is need now for them to serve a better purpose for the foreign investors and the cane farmers. Alonzo hopes for a partnership between both parties where one does not have to take the information provided by the other, but one where the information is shared freely.

 

Oscar Alonzo, C.E.O., B.S.C.F.A

“One of the fundamental factors is the issue of disclosure of information. If we could achieve a greater measure of this being improved on, I think this would help a lot because the disclosure of information is at the root of what we are experiencing at the moment. The investors, foreign and whatever the case might be, have generally tended to use the expression of private sector – private business – to justify their reluctance to disclose information, but they have also used terms like free market economy, capitalist accumulation, things that we don’t object to; it’s part of what we are involved with. That would work if we had a situation where we are equals, where it is not a process where the powerful which invariably has been the foreign investor and the weaker party which is the local producer having to literally accept without question what is given to them in terms of the commercial nature or the commercial value of the transactions that occur. Allusions have been made to the fact that we should not touch the issue of the cane payment and the formula that exists because no consideration of profit-sharing should be part of that; we should consider a concept of values and having the pie grow and not sharing the pie. I think this is an interpretation being given just to further reinforce the reluctance to provide information.”