Georgetown : Prime Minister Samuel Hinds in response to a letter written by Nurlene Nestor dated May 20th 2011, which accused the Government of neglecting bauxite workers, expressed Government’s disgust at the article, noting that the Administration has over the years, treated bauxite and sugar workers equitably.
While alluding to the fact that, Government has assisted the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GUYSUCO), by providing $300M to pay severance benefits to sugar workers of Diamond Estate, he said that allocations were also made in 1994, to meet the commitments to bauxite workers.
A release from the Office of the Prime Minister stated that over a period from 1994 to 2005, a total of $2,190,221,504 was allocated for payments to bauxite workers, a commitment that had not been made since the 1980s.
“About 4,000 bauxite workers, who, as mentioned in Ms. Nestor’s letter, were mostly Afro-Guyanese and who, in times past, would have mostly supported the PNC, benefiting from that assistance. These facts did not matter to the PPP/C then, when we supported the bauxite workers, and they do not matter now,” the release stated.
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