CLARKS TOWN, Trelawny – Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) leader Bruce Golding has accused the government of misleading the country on the state of the divestment process for the island’s sugar estates.

“The truth of the matter is that the government has not been truthful to you. This divestment thing is not working out,” he said.

In February, agriculture and lands minister Roger Clarke said the administration had shortlisted five entities to bid for the country’s public sugar operations, as the state tries to divest its stake in an industry that has continually drained millions of dollars from the public purse.

At that time, he said the entities included Dhampur Sugar Mills from India; Trinidadian company Angostura; Coimex, a Brazil-based company; and Jamaica’s Gibson Energy Ltd, which had partnered with a Canadian enterprise that Clarke and sugar industry officials had declined to name.

Less than two months later, however, the agriculture minister told the Observer that the government had decided to reopen the tender process because there was a rush of applications from “serious investors” who have a lot of money.

But Golding, who was addressing party supporters in Clarks Town, Trelawny at the campaign launch of the JLP’s candidate for the area, Dennis Meadows, said it was untrue that there were many interesting entities vying to purchase the estates.

“This thing about how much people are running down the government to buy the sugar estates; nothing nuh go so. People are simply expressing an interest,” he said. “It is like a piece of land is selling (but) you are not sure if you really want it, so you put down your name. If you can get the land cheap you will buy it, but if them ask a serious price for it maybe you would not buy it,: that is what is happening,” the opposition leader said.

Added Golding: “Some of them (interested persons) who set down their names don’t really have much plans for doing sugar business in Jamaica.”

The opposition leader also chided the government for what he said was its failure to adequately prepare for the changes in the sugar industry.

He said that although the government was told by the European Union five years ago that there would be a reduction in the price it pays for sugar, it made no preparations for the farmers to cushion the expected loss in earnings.

“The European Union told Jamaica and all the African Caribbean and Pacific countries that produce sugar that what they will get for sugar was going to reduce from US25 cents per pound to US15cents per pound but the government make no plans for the sugar workers,” Golding said.

“Right now we don’t know what is going to happen to the sugar workers, we don’t know what is going to happen to the cane farmers and we don’t hear anybody asking questions,” he said.

The JLP, Golding said, had long proposed that the government provide a price support mechanism to the tune of $1billion per year to cushion the loss in sugar earnings due the price cut by the European Union.

The sugar industry, he added, was too vital to the social and economic development of the island to be treated with scant regard.