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Today's house meeting lasted less than two hours - and probably the only meaningful debate was between the UDP's First Deputy Leader Hugo Patt and the PUP's Regional Deputy Leader for the north Jose Mai.
Both are cane farmers and both are agronomists and both of them tried to explain how a country like Belize - which produces so much sugar - can find itself facing a sugar scarcity. Here's an unusually respectful and productive exchange between the two parliamentarians:
Hugo Patt, UDP - Corozal North
"Belize is a country that in the region is more than self-sufficient in sugar. As a matter of fact, both combined both both both Mills, Santander and BSI/ASR Belize produces annually around 160000 to 180000 tons of cane. The local consumption of sugar per year varies around 13000 to 17000 tons of sugar. This is about 8 to 12% of the annual production. If you want if we want to roll it out, some 85% of what we produce in country is destined for the export market."
"It cannot be that we live in a country - and I may speak for the constituency and for the districts that I come from in the north - where all around you see sugar cane And yet when you want to buy sugar for the consumption of families for the small businesses, for the single mother who produces candies, for those small bakers who want to produce bread with sugar and for all those other businesses that see themselves affected by this scarcity, you can't get anything. It has reached the point, Mr. Speaker, that if you want to buy sugar, it's rationed, selling sugar, probably one pound, two pound, three pound the most."
"This is, this is untenable. This cannot continue. And this must be addressed. The solution is rather simple. Two things We either increase the price of sugar so as not to make it as attractive, so that the people who get the sugar, who are hoarding the sugar, don't contraband the sugar or we don't get serious and have our law enforcement officers do their job without any kind of ministerial or cabinet intervention."
"I as as working as a sugar cane farmer, I don't support at this point in time any increase in the price of sugar because it's going to hit, Mr. Speaker, the poorest in this country, it's going to hit those socially marginalized people in our sector, in our society. And at this point in time, I don't think that the increase of price of sugar is an option that we want to consider."
Jose Mai, Minister of Agriculture
"The price today for brown sugar at the mill is $0.34 up and $0.34 upon the same will sugar or similar sugar in Mexico is right now at $1.70, about the same sugar that we are practically giving away at $0.34. The mill. But the price control for that central commodities is $0.39. So the wholesaler or the person who buys, we only have $0.05 to play with. There was no there was no consideration for wholesaler/retailer to make profit. So if you are a businessman in Toledo and you want to sell sugar in Toledo, you come to the mill, you pay $34 for the sack of a hundred pounds and then drive back to PG and sell it at $0.39. You don't even pay for your fuel."
"For WHITE sugar, it would be 67, right now. And the maximum control price is $0.75. That's $0.08. So what happens? It is easier for a wholesaler to come to the mill pay 34 cents, and half way down the road you meet a truck with Guatemalanl icense plate and all you do is unload and sell that same sugar, which he bought for 34 cents at $1 per sack."
"Situation in Mexico is such that so many have closed down because of the lack of available labor. Four mills have closed down, the price of sugar in Mexico right now is at its highest. The plantation white sugar right now is at $1.80 per pound, we are at $0.75."
"So the only way we believe that we can reduce the amount of sugar leaking to Mexico and to Guatemala is to find a way to increase, to increase the price, the controlled price. But it has to be based on facts and numbers that we are given."
"But we have said today, they have said to us, we want you to raise the price to this amount. And we are saying, hold on how have you come up with that price?"
"So even if we raise the price for argument's sake to a dollar or $0.95, and the retail Is maybe at $1.20 or $1.15, the sugar will still find itself across the border because there is $2 a pound."
"We are a government with a social conscience, so whatever costs increase, we may have to decide that, it has to be well justified and that this is what has taken place in Cabinet for more than one session, believe me. But until we are comfortable that Belizean people will still be able to buy the sugar and until we are comfortable that the farmers are getting a fair price to meet their cost."
"Then cabinet will decide. As a matter of fact, in two weeks we will make a thorough position in cabinet with all the numbers to see where is it that we must have the price of sugar."
