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By Agriculture & Elections Desk | WHIM, 24 July 2025
In the cane‑belt village of Whim, Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha addressed a sea of red jerseys and cane‑field banners, vowing that sugar would thrive under the PPP/C. The promise reopened wounds from 2017, when the APNU+AFC coalition closed four estates and sent 7 500 workers home overnight. Mustapha reminded the crowd that the current administration has since poured around G$60 billion into revival efforts, reigniting boilers at Rose Hall, rehiring workers and installing drip‑irrigation systems that cut water use by thirty percent. Enmore’s revamped packaging plant now earns an eight‑hundred‑dollar premium per tonne for specialty Demerara crystals.
With all seven estates projected to run at three‑quarters capacity, sugar could contribute seven percent of GDP by 2028 and support twenty‑four‑thousand direct and indirect jobs, injecting G$3.5 billion a year into community wages. Mustapha announced that twenty‑five‑thousand new acres near Molsen Creek will be opened, alongside an all‑weather road that halves travel time to Skeldon, and that outer blocks will inter‑crop cane with soy and corn to hedge against price swings.
The minister urged residents never to forget the closures, framing sugar’s revival as both restitution and renaissance. Opposition spokesperson Ganesh Mahipaul called the spending “good money after bad,” but Mustapha retorted that the estates failed because the previous government starved them of capital, then blamed them for collapse. Future funding will mix carbon‑credit revenue for estate solar plants, a Saudi soft loan for automation and public‑private co‑ops leasing peripheral lands, a model Finance Minister Ashni Singh says keeps debt‑to‑GDP below thirty‑five percent.
For younger voters, PPP/C packages nostalgia with opportunity: agro‑mechanics apprenticeships, land‑preparation scholarships through GOAL and a #SweetFuture TikTok blitz that drew four‑hundred‑thousand views in a day. With Berbice turnout expected to top seventy‑eight percent, the party hopes cane‑field memories and fresh pay‑slips will keep the county crimson on 1 September.
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“Sugar Will Always Survive Under Us”: Mustapha’s Berbice Rally Re‑Ignites Faith in Guyana’s Oldest Industry
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