Parliament has passed the motion of the Consolidated Review of the Sugar Cane Growers Fund 2019 and 2020 Annual Reports that was tabled on the 23rd of May this year.
While speaking on the motion, the Chairperson of the Standing Committee on Economic Affairs and Assistant Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister Sakiusa Tubuna says the Sugar Cane Growers Fund is a statutory body providing affordable loans to the sugar cane growers in Fiji.
Tubuna says the Fund aims to increase the production of sugar cane, improve efficiency in planting, growing, harvesting and the transportation of sugar cane, and also rehabilitate farms and farm buildings and other installations that damage or destroy it or affected by floods, cyclones and droughts.
He further says the Committee, in its view, articulated eight findings with the recommendations in which the Minister of Sugar has responded and provided assurance that the Fund will be working on implementing the recommendations to enhance sustainability and efficiency of the Fund and other sugar sectors.
While making her contribution on the motion, independent opposition member Premila Kumar says in the new financial year, the government has committed over $68 million to the sector, and went on to ask if this money will improve sugar production and yield the results we hoped for.
Kumar says Fiji's sugar industry is in crisis which is well known by all, but it is propped up by past and present government assistance without addressing the fundamental problem, merely keeping it on life support where each year more taxpayer money is brought into this filing system with no change to the status. She says the sugar industry is in trouble and is worsened when politicians see the sugar sector as the vote bank engaging in blame games.
She adds that this coalition government is injecting politics back into the system at the expense of taxpayers who are paying for them, and this move undermines the reform that the industry desperately needs.
While responding to the question, the Minister for Sugar Industry Charan Jeath Singh presented the committee's findings on the consolidated review of the Sugar Cane Growers Fund's reports, the challenges faced by Fiji's sugar industry and the urgent need for reforms.
He says the recommendations from the committee are to improve the financial performance of Southwest Fertilizers Private Limited, a company owned by the Sugar Cane Growers Fund.
He adds that the company had not diversified its products to become financially sustainable, instead relying on government subsidies to stay afloat.
The Minister says the only way forward to prevent the imminent collapse of the sugar industry was through consolidation, modernisation and diversification.
Independent Member of Parliament Sachida Nand went on to ask the Minister for the Sugar Industry if they could expand the types of loans that have been issued to our farmers because they could barely make a living out of the cane farm.
Nand says our sugar cane farmers are the centre of the industry, and apart from land leases, the biggest challenge they face is the high cost of production.
Nand further says the Sugar Cane Growth Fund plays a very vital role in ensuring that funds are available to the farmers in terms of farm development, production, and also for their private and personal issues.
In response, the Deputy Prime Minister Professor Biman Prasad says the Sugar Cane Growers Fund’s history is long, the intention was very noble, and the fund over the years has served the farmers very well.
He says he was kind of intrigued, happy as well as concerned about the comments made by the opposition MP Premila Kumar and wishes she was able to make those comments when she was in government, because the Coalition Government would not have wasted that four years that she was in government, and they might have done something better.
Professor Prasad says they should work together as a parliament and come together with a committee that will drive the agenda.
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