Task Force warns farmers not to go against the army

[posted 29 September 2009]

A Sugar Ministry task force is going around stopping cane farmers from signing a petition, addressed to the Sugar Minister, in protest against the scrapping of the Sugar Cane Growers Council.

Members of the task force are threatening these innocent farmers with retaliation from the army if they signed the petition.

They are warning farmers “Don’t go against the army”.

“The Sugar Minister and his Permanent Secretary must be held answerable for this intimidation of cane farmers. Farmers have every right to make representation to the Sugar Minister,” NFU general secretary Mahendra Chaudhry said.

Farmers have a just cause. The interim government has ordered the dismantling of key industry institutions without any consultation with the growers who are now completely denied a voice in an industry in which they have a 70% stake.

In the past few months, the interim government has dismantled the Sugar Commission of Fiji, the Fiji Sugar Marketing Ltd and the Sugar Cane Growers Council which were set up under the 1984 Sugar Industry Act to allow growers a collective voice in the industry, and to ensure transparency and accountability.

The scrapping of these important institutions has allowed minority stakeholder, the Fiji Sugar Corporation, sole monopoly of the industry.

The 1984 Sugar Industry Act had been the product of comprehensive consultations between industry leaders and stakeholders. It had given growers their rightful voice in the industry following decades of exploitation and abuse at the hands of the Australian Colonial Sugar Refining Company (CSR) and its successors.

Cane growers are naturally apprehensive about their future and their rights under a system whereby the FSC and the government have sole control.

They have a right to make representation to the authorities on issues of critical concern to them.